Facebook isn’t just a household name for 250 million users around the world; it’s also an important marketing strategy used by thousands of businesses. More than 8 million users become fans of Facebook Pages each day, which means Facebook fan pages are a valuable way to reach new customers and boost your brand.
Ensure Relevancy
The first step to having a successful Facebook fan page is to ensure that your page is relevant. There are countless companies whose Fan Pages have only a handful of fans because their pages are irrelevant. Oftentimes this is the case for B2B companies, or those that offer professional services. So before putting your resources and energy into your Fan Page, be sure this is an appropriate outlet for you to reach new customers and interact with your customer base.
Include Fresh Content
Adding an RSS feed of your blog to your fan page is a great tactic for posting content to your page, but you should strive to include fresh content that can’t be found anywhere else. Without new and compelling content, customers will have little reason to visit your page or even become a fan in the first place. Offering special deals on your Facebook page (such as Busted Tees has done in the example below) is a great way to attract fans, increase your page’s relevancy and keep fans coming back to your page.
Promote Your Page
Many companies create a page on Facebook and expect the fans to come frolicking. But acquiring fans takes effort. That’s why it’s important to cross-promote your Facebook Page on all of your social media and online outlets: on your Web site, blog, newsletter, Twitter page, or in e-mail campaigns.
Implement Apps
There are more than 50,000 applications on the Facebook platform, many of which can be integrated directly into your page. Many apps, such as YouTube Box, can increase user engagement and promote viral exposure of your brand; users’ interactions with your page will be announced to each of their Facebook friends.
Brand Your Page
According to Facebook, Pages look and behave like user profiles to connect and engage with your customers and amplify your voice to their friends. But why not also make it look like your own Web site? Apps like Static FBML allow you to customize your page with HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language).
Be social
Finally, the most important element of a successful Fan Page is interaction. It’s called social networking, after all. Let your customers submit reviews, encourage them to submit photos of themselves using or wearing your product, respond to their questions in a timely manner, and be sure to comment on their posts.
Have any other tips to share? Leave a comment below.
