top facebook tips

23 Tips to build a successful Facebook Fan Page

How can you get over 43million new fans of your business in a quick and easy way? Where you can you share your business, thoughts and breaking news with a website who’s users are actively online for 50

minutes per day, everyday? Where are 5millions pieces of information and content shared every week? How can you be involved in the 2nd most visited site after Google in the world?

All this potential can be yours when you create a Facebook Fan Page for your business. With a possible audience of 43 million users, it is an essential place for your businesses to develop its online presence.

All this said, it isn’t easy to create an effective Facebook fan page, which will enthuse your target audience and successfully create a great

reputation for your business. No need to worry however, as this is where we come in, with the 24 most important tips to build a

successful fan page.

1. What you put in is what you get out. It is essential to dedicate a certain amount of time to maintaining your page so that your audiences have a reason to retain interest in the page and your business.

2. Decide how often you wish to post, with a minimum amount of one comment per day, you need to show you update regularly. This can be done as much as you want, but remember that you don’t want to be the only one writing on your wall!

3. Ensure you know your target audience, and address them personally, Facebook can help you understand your demographic, location and gender who are involved in your Facebook page. These locations can also dictate the way you approach them in further communication.

4. Although there is little you can do about the layout of the page, due to Facebook restrictions, the picture used on your page can be manipulated in size to increase promotion. Doing this, you need to ensure you know where you want the eye of your audience to fall, as a large picture could distract the audience from the rest of the page.

Understand which size profile picture, suites your business, as larger ones can distract from the rest of the page.

5. Facebook allows you to create a landing page on a tab within your Facebook page, which can be set to be the first thing that new members to your fan page see. This site is less restricted and can emphasise the look and feel of your brand.

The first thing the user sees when visiting the Dell page, giving you the chance to brand your page in your company theme.

6. As well as a landing page, the tab feature (limited at six tabs per page) allows you to link to other social networks you may have for your business including, LinkedIN, Twitter and FlickR.

7. Once the basis of your page has been laid, it is vital to ensure that updates to your page, posts on the wall, pictures and videos, are appropriate and will interest your target audience. General topics of interest for a fan page include interesting and relevant content (not solely about your brand), insightful articles and dynamic content. Constantly providing a variety of mediums for your posts will keep viewers interesting (e.g. videos, photos, podcasts, text and links).

Interesting and relevant articles for the specific industries.

8. @tags are a relatively new concept for Facebook which allow you to tag certain individual users or organisations, which shows on your page and increases promotion by appearing on their page too.

9. Live conversations can be a risky feature to include on your page as they can create a mini forum in which positive and negative comments can be said. If by chance negative comments occur, it is integral to leave people to have their say and address the issues, eventually solving them. This proves that you, as a business care about your customers and value their opinions.

Live conversations, give your audience the opportunity to communicate directly with you.

10. Throughout all your communications on your Facebook page, be authentic, tell your story and include interesting content.

11. A good feature I have noticed on some Facebook fan pages, is to introduce a Who’s Who? Section. This can be placed under a tab (if you have any spare) and adds a personal touch to the page, and gives the audience a personal and unique point of contact when addressing your page.

Being able to put a face to the business, makes users feel like they know and understand your company and can increase trust of your brand.

12. Remember your high traffic times, particularly in the UK, these occur between 08:15 and 02:00.

13. Send regular invites around the realm of Facebook to those who are not already fans, to ensure your business name is out there and being said by users.

In the message, explain what you benefits you can give to the user to be come your friend or “like” you.

14. Whilst maintaining interesting input to your wall posts it is also important that you address what is being said by others on your page. This can be done by answering questions and addressing comments to show you care about your fans.

15. If you’re having a dry spell and can’t think of interesting things to tell your fans, a good way to get ideas is to create a poll or a survey, and then your fans do the work for you and give you the topics that they would like to hear about!

16. Just because you have built the page, does not mean they will join! Promote your page in as many ways as you can. Have links to it on your website, in your email signature and contact other businesses in your network and cross promote each other, to gain an even wider audience.

17. Applications can be a great way to drive traffic to your page and there are numerous applications that can be utilised on Facebook.

Use relevant applications to communicate with your audience.

18. Slideshare can be linked to your page to show your fans the kind of things you are working on, through photos, and any slideshows you have given in the past, or are to give in the future.

Using mixed media, keeps your posts interesting.

19. Reviews are a great way up the profile or your business through positive feedback from clients, ensure that if anything negative is reported, you address the concern and show that you are there for support in situations such as this.

20. Youtube video box gives links to either videos you have made to illustrate posts on your page, or relevant videos that have interested you and you believe will interest your audience.

Using mixed media, keeps your posts interesting.

21. Member of the Month has been tested on a few pages, that I have seen and randomly selects a member of the fans to be rewarded for being a fan in this monthly competition.

22. Wherever there are prizes and incentives, people will surely follow. Regular competitions with small prizes, can be a small cost to create large profits in the long run.

If you need anymore information about Facebook and the way you can use if for your business, subscribe to the Xposure blog, for lots of free hints, tips and advice!

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