The No. 1 Way to Get More Fans/Follows/Likes
The most obvious and easy way to get more likes for your page is to get all of your current customers to fan/follow/like you.
The most obvious and easy way to get more likes for your page is to get all of your current customers to fan/follow/like you.
Since social media took off, one of the top questions has been: “How do we get more fans/follows/likes” for our business? Probably the number one easy answer is to run ads (this is what Facebook and Twitter encourage you to do), but I want to focus on organic fan acquisition.
How do you get more fans/follows/likes to your page?
Build personal requests into your business processes.
Unless you have an aspirational brand, chances are that most of your fans are customers, or are planning to become customers. But what percent of your customers are fans?
For most businesses, only a very small segment of their customers have actually liked them on Facebook. Even their repeat-loyal-super-satisfied customers haven’t liked them yet.
The number one most obvious and easy way to get more likes for your page is to get all of your current customers to fan/follow/like you.
But how?
Ask Them Personally and Individually
When I send out a mass email to our list or even to session attendees I typically don’t get a very good response. People assume that “someone else will do it” and don’t feel any personal accountability.
The best way to get anybody to do anything is to make the request personal and individual (or at least to appear that way). Step back for a moment and review every touch point that you have with your customers. Consider how you can include a personalized request to connect on a social network. In-person requests work best. When do your customers interact with a human at your organization? How can you organically include a request to connect into this dialogue?
Alternately, consider when they might be at a computer and potentially on a social network, and make the request at that time.
Build Social Media Fan/Follow/Like Requests Into Your Business Process
The real key to the success of personal requests is to build social media into your business processes. Most businesses just slap social media icons onto storefronts, websites, and emails. This typically isn’t very effective.
Instead, evaluate your business processes and look at how you can integrate social. For example, I was working with an online retailer that had a particularly interesting product. We looked at how to integrate specific requests for social media sharing into the purchase process.
I also worked with a furniture store, and we created a process where sales people requested new customers to share a picture of their new furniture when it was set up in their home. They created cards with the Facebook page that sales reps could share to make it easier for customers to remember. This led to a large increase in the number of fans, plus this encouraged customers to share images.
Provide a Reason
Finally, it is absolutely vital to provide a reason when you ask someone to do something. In the book “Influence” by Robert Cialdini (one of the best books I have ever read) they reference a study that found that providing a simple reason – “Can I jump in-front of you in line?” vs. “Can I jump in-front of you in line because I am in a rush?” – made a dramatic difference in responses.
Providing a reason makes people more likely to do something.
Don’t just say “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” but provide a reason. This will make it much more likely that people will take you up on your request.
Facebook Like image on home page via Shutterstock.