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How to Grow Your Facebook Fan Base
The new word of mouth is Facebook, and Linkup Marketing's Valorie Reavis shows you how to grow your fan base.
June 22, 2012
Valorie Reavis, social media marketing specialist and founder of LinkUp Marketing
3 min to read
Word of mouth has always been one of the most powerful marketing tools open to a salon. The advent of Facebook and other social media hasn't changed that. Working your Facebook page and getting great engagement will spread the word even more and help build a strong, dynamic community.
But a strong community doesn't mean it is far-reaching. A vital part of any healthy Facebook page is growing the number of connections. What's the point of talking to an empty page? This is where Insights, the analytical section of your Facebook business page, can help you build a strategy to conquer Facebook one fan at a time. If you know what interests your fans, you've got the key to getting and keeping them onboard.
Previously, we've looked at drilling dwon into the demographics to reveal where fans are located and what they like so you can target posts. This time we are looking at the same section (Likes) to find oiut where these likes are coming from. Below the demographics area we covered previously, you'll find a simple graph detailing your likes or unlikes over time, as well as where your likes are coming from.
The first section to consider is the graph ‘Where Your Likes Came From’. It features two simple lines, new likes and unlikes. Hopefully likes are much higher than unlikes. If not, you need to give linkup a call. Both are useful because it shows at a glance where the likes and unlikes happen, enabling you to drill in and link this to your activity.
Just like in your business, people will leave your page as a natural course of relationships, but you want to work to keep this as minimal as possible. Check out any spikes in the graph. If there is a particular date where there were more unlikes than average? Have a look at what activity happened on your page that day and draw some conclusions about the cause of the exodus. Was it at the tail end of a flurry of activity that may have irritated some so much that they decided to take a break? Or could it be a particular post, did you touch on something contentious? Sometimes it’s difficult not to stray into the personal, but it is important to remember at all times that your business persona is separate from your personal page and you must only post comments that you would say in the salon.
Same thing with your New Likes – have a look at any upswings and downturns to identify activities that resulted in an increase in likes. You know you are on the right track if there is a spike in likes. Posts possibly went viral, appearing on your fans’ friends’ newsfeeds and they clearly liked the activity enough to want to be part of it. Check out what was said and who responded and try and think up similar, but not identical, potential posts and slip them in every now and again.
The second aspect to consider is what channel the likes came through, shown in the list to the right of the likes/unlike graph. The most common source of likes is ‘On Page’ meaning the user visited your page and decided to like you. The other most common route will be mobile, your increasingly ubiquitous smartphone. Evaluating this list is less about fitting standards and more about finding opportunities to increase your likeability in all categories. Most of this will boil down to activity and engagement. The more active you are and the more you are producing engaging content, the more exposure you get across all of these areas. Of course, advertising with Facebook helps, too!
Valorie Reavis is part of Linkup Marketing, an online and social media marketing specialist focusing on search engine marketing, salon email marketing programs and social media marketing for salons and spas. If you have any queries for the Linkup team check out the website www.linkupmarketing.com, email info@linkupmarketing.com, find them on facebook.com/linkupmarketing or follow them on Twitter @linkupmarketing.
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