Experimenting With Facebook Fan Page Growth
February 10, 2010 by ebrown
Filed under Engagement Strategies, Social Media Marketing
Corralling facebook fans can be a tough sled. All of our facebook in boxes are inundated with fan page requests, most of which are ignored. Search the web and there are dozens of “How To” guides on the topic
Mashable penned a 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page
For many companies a Facebook
fan page is an integral part of their social media campaign. But, what elements help fan pages build up large followings and what can brands do to emulate the success of others? I’ve put together a list of specific elements that I believe have helped create fan pages with large, engaged, followings.
As we grow our Digital Sherpa Brand and our Turn Key Social Media Product, one of the things we are constantly doing is trying experiments, some of which may seem small, some that don’t work, and some that have an impact to results.
Experimenting With Facebook Fan Page Growth
So we started our Digital Sherpa Facebook Fan Page about 30-45 days ago. Our first exercise was to do like most folks do, which is to invite your friends from our personal profiles, which netted about (350) fans. Next two weeks, hardly nothing, fan adds completely stalled for the next couple of weeks.
Time for Something New
Sometimes to my demise, I am an action oriented guy, and while that doesn’t always work, some of our best discoveries have been from twisting and turning when things aren’t working. So, for the last two weeks, we have been adding three to five articles of interest, our own morning reads to the Digital Sherpa Fan Page, and I have tweeted the article, but linked to the Digital Sherpa Fan Page. The hope was that our Community of Interest found value in the shared, filtered article, and also became a Digital Sherpa fan.
I am a big believer in “borrowing ideas”. Dan McCrthy has blogged about how his blog traffic has increased from his recent, regular Good Reads posting, which is a similar idea on “sharing”
I’m acting as a curator of content that I’m experiencing. I’m applying an editorial filter on that content, and in each summary providing some context for why I think the post is interesting. The blog post itself isn’t strictly original, but it is definitely presenting a point of view that some number of my readers find useful.
Here are Our Two Week Results,
We have added a little over (200) facebook Fans in two weeks. Not bad, and that is helping us move from the staled position. That tact may not work to get us to (5,000) fans, but it has moved the needle for now. I liken this to one of our angles as to how to grow blog followers, is by leaving thoughtful comments on like other blog posts. The point is this is, we are filtering and sharing what we find with our Community of Interest.
So we will keep you posted. What has worked for you in adding Facebook Fan Page fans?
I saw the same pattern with my pages. I hate the stalled position
A couple things we have done and are implementing are the following. 1. Changing our email signatures to an html format using plugins like wisestamp. 2. Active campaign to our clients that the page is a useful tool for them and a way we connect to them as customers. 3. Tagging individuals if there is something that pertains to them or their company. 4. Keeping the content regular so that it appears in the search engines. The trick I am still working on is getting people to interact with posts and to give them a reason to visit the page as part of their routine. That is a work in progress. Great post and I am happy that your FB page has had good success so far.
Hey Jonathan,
Thank you for sharing your facebook strategy experience. The common denominator, as with anything we do in business, we must have something of value for the customer/reader/follower.
In your opinion, what is a sustainable growth metric? Any thoughts on that?
A real picture to me of sustainable growth should demonstrate itself as we take on new clients. The last few clients that joined our family were quick to join the page. I believe it will level itself out after I complete my outreach program to our client base that was present prior to the establishment of our FB page. The other side of the growth factor for me is the interactions. That is part of my 2010 experiments to see what works and what doesn't. We shall see!
Hello Eric,
I went to the Digital Sherpa Fan Page to take a look, become a fan and add you to my favorite’s on my Fan page.
What has worked for me is adding “Favorite Pages” Pages that visitors and fans can learn from.
I avoid using links inside the comment section of a post because it makes it difficult to read. Maybe it's my older eyes! There is no need for links to be visible if the admin uses the “attach a link” option. If it is a matter of time admin can post the link in the comment section, let it load and then delete the link. The attachment remains.
People tend to read posts in their feeds and not make a visit to the fan page for the most part. When they actually visit the fan page it is beneficial to give them a means to not miss the additional information that is offerd. This is easily accomplished by having an email sign-up form, created in a system like Aweber or Blue Sky.
Interaction/response from fans is an interesting challenge, from my experience if I have have a few people “like” my post that is nice, if they leave a comment that is a bonus. My findings…in a very general way ( of course there are exceptions) has been that people do not respond to articles that are educational, meaning if the article is something that they need to read from a higher level of learning point of view, responses will be null to a few likes. If the content is something the reader/fan is knowledgeable about the “comments” and “likes” increase. Not that the educational posts are not being read but rather from a comfort level of leaving a comment that risks them appearing uninformed. I frequently find myself in this position, I read posts on Blogs and Facebook because I am seeking a higher level of education and because I do not have enough knowledge to make an educated comment I shy away from doing so. With that said I have recently started to leave comments with the risk of showing that I am uneducated in an area that the post is covering. My rational is that by leaving a comment it shows the blogger or person making the post that their readers are not as educated as they are and opens the discussion even further to their ability to educate. This is interesting… to this date not one “content owner” has tried to provide me with another point of view. Posts directed to B2B are very different than posts made from B2C.
What is the reason you are sharing the information in the first place? Education? News or updates? These types of posts get the least response. Asking questions? Asking for help? Sharing wisdom in form of a quote? Offering assistance? These types of posts achieve higher comments and likes.
Does not having “comments” or “likes” mean that you are not reaching your fans? Does this mean they are not engaged? I don’t think so…why do I have this opinion? The numbers of fans continually increase and email sign-up’s continue, which is my measurement. A B2B Fan page is going to have a different interaction rate than a B2C Fan page will. Therefore measurement needs to be viewed differently. What’s your take?
Tami
Thanks for the input Jonathan, I was just curious as to your thoughts on metrics and measurement. keep up the good work, we appreciate hearing from you,
Tami –very cool insights. I did not even realize the point about the attachment links. Thanks! I like your thoughts on measurement for B2B
Jonathan,
I can only give you my experience, many others may disagree with my insight, but it is working for me. I frequently look at other B2B fan pages and see how their fans are responding and it seems like they are experiencing similar results on the type of content that is posted. When you view Fan pages and see all the interaction look at the level of information they are sharing, is it a higher level of educational or is it at a level that fans are already comfortable and knowledgeable with? Can people respond without risk?
Tami
Hey Tami,
Funny you would stop by, as I have been thinking about the success you have had with your own fan page, Multifamily Pro, (over 5,000 fans!) and much appreciate hearing your insight. Much of this for all of us is a work in progress, learn as you go practice,
Eric,
I have ran some interesting experiments and have created some interesting strategies over the past year for the http://www.facebook.com/MProFan. The single most important thing I can tell you is that in building a Fan page for B2B versus a B2C is VERY different in content and measurement.
This is what I do for PCMG's fan page (facebook.com/propertyexperts) I put myself in the shoes of my audience and give them information that I think they would benefit from and gives them value. Working well so far. Cheers!
Love the idea of experimenting Tami, Some things work, some don't, but we can't be afraid to try new things, Thanks for contributing here,
Ryan, Good Afternoon,
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment, much appreciated.
To your point, when adding something of value to your Circle of Influence, folks join in, which IS what Community is all about,
Michael, Hello
Thank you for sharing your story here. That looks like an excellent engagement plan. Some of these comments, like yours could be posts in of themselves!
What I like about what you did was the fact that folks interacted, which is really what we are all looking for. A static site with lots of fans is as useless as a site with no fans, so Engagement IS the Key. Congratulations on a winning strategy!