1. The first step: Ask all of your friends and family to become a fan
This is the first thing to do when you set up a page. Okay friends and family may get a little irritated if your page isn’t relevant to them, but tell them that they can leave after a couple of weeks: this is the best way to kick things off, as people follow the crowd and are more likely to become a fan of you if you already have some!
2. Promote your Page elsewhere
Make sure your Facebook is linked up with your website, newsletter, blog and social networks (including a Facebook business profile). This sounds hugely obvious, but it is a mistake many make – with their businesses on Twitter and Facebook but with no clear links to these accounts on their website! See the image for the details we show on our Twitter background (get your own custom Twitter background here). You could use something similar for business cards, invoices, receipts etc too. Whatever place people interact with your business, make sure your Facebook page is there.
3. Become a fan of other local or partner businesses
Make yourself known and network with others by joining other relevant groups / becoming a fan of pages – and then chatting to people. Here’s an idea: become a fan of Silicon Beach Training’s Facebook page see tip #2 ;-).
4. Interact with your network
Once you’ve set up your page and have a growing community, make sure you are active within it; as well as sharing your own content, comment and respond to others’ posts and updates. Facebook makes this easy with a click of the thumbs-up “like” button. Don’t neglect monitoring all comments on your page and responding promptly – especially to anything negative.
5. Offer a promotional discount to Facebook fans
Many companies offer an ongoing discount to Twitter followers or Facebook fans, but alternatively you could do a deal over a limited time period. This way people will not put off becoming your fan. For example, last year we offered a 20% discount to our Facebook fans who booked a course custom Twitter backgrounds when they hit a certain number of fans.
