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7 Quick Tips to Grow a Fan Base on Facebook

Growing a fan base on Facebook is not easy. 5 years ago new pages could grow quickly & organically, because there were so few pages competing for attention in the news feed. Nowadays if you want to grow a high-quality, engaged fan base, you need to plan well & execute well.

How do you do this? What are the steps for making it happen?

1. Define Your Target Market

Every business should know its ideal customer BEFORE getting started on Facebook. Remember, not all 1.2 billion Facebook users represent your target customer. For example, “I run an inflatable "bounce house" business on the weekends -- renting out bounce houses in my area. My ideal customers are women with kids living within 10 miles of my house. I target women instead of men because women are usually the ones planning the parties & making the buying decisions.”

With these criteria in mind, I buy Facebook ads to promote my page & target women within 10 miles of my home who are between the ages of 25 & 45. 86% of my fans are women -- and 60% are women between the ages of 25 & 44.

According to the report, about 7,400 Facebook users live within 10 miles. And about 1,580 of those people are women between the ages of 25 & 45. Try using this same technique on your page to find the target market for your company. Remember, finding the right kind of fans is essential if you want to use Facebook to drive sales. And targeting helps you find the right kinds of fans.

It is better to have 100-targeted fans who engage with your posts than 10,000 fans who Liked your page but never comment or share a post.

2. Get the Tone Right

Now that you've defined your target audience, you need to start talking to them, using the posts on your page.

While communicating with fans try to:

Using the bounce house business as an example, if the target customer is a young mom in the area, I need to post things that appeal to young moms. I shouldn't post about stuff not happening locally or things that appeal mostly to men or people without kids. Try to build trust with your fans, design your posts to appeal to your target market.

3. Identify Which Posts Spur the Most Engagement

Every Facebook page is unique & posts that work on one page may not get engagement on another page.

That's why it's important to test what works & what doesn't. Do this to see what content works best. When you see a post that has been successful, plan a similar post in the future. If a post bombs, that type of post is dead (at least for that particular page).

Facebook status ideas that repeatedly spark response from fans include:

4. Remember it's a Long-Term Investment

Successful social media marketing takes time, hard work & patience.

Using the bounce house example, they spent about $150 on Facebook ads growing the bounce house page to 400-targeted Likes. So far, about 90% of business has come from Facebook. Since starting the business last October the total revenue is about $3k -- and most of those sales came from boosting posts & finding Likes on Facebook. Over the next few months, they expect the initial $150 investment in the page to pay off big time -- even if they just rent 1 bounce house per week.

So continue building your page & maintaining strong relationships with fans. Remember -- those not buying today will know about your brand when they need to make a purchase somewhere down the road.

5. Keep it Real, Relaxed & Relevant

While building your fan base you must keep things real, relaxed & relevant. Don't blast promotional posts every hour thinking that's the best way to drum up business. You'll only chase away high-quality fans. Instead, try a post a day in the beginning. Don't overwhelm fans by flooding the news feed right out of the gate. Give fans a chance to get to know, like & trust you -- then start posting more often.

Consistency is important, but quality should be your top priority if you hope to grow a high-quality fan base.

6. Stick to a Schedule

As a page manager, the worst thing you can do is post sporadically. So set up a schedule with times during the day when you want to post. Try using the Post Planner's Queue feature so you know you are not posting too often & that posts are scheduled in advance.

Repost the same 15 images in the queue rotation using the Re-Queue feature, and mix in text updates to get more interaction from fans. The Queue feature lets me create a post & add it to my Queue -- filling the next available spot in line.

Arrange the times, then enter the post & click the "Queue" button:

Once it's planned, you'll see a dimmed green icon with a circular arrow on the right side of your post. Click that icon & it turns bright green -- signaling that your post is set to "Re-Queue".

Now whenever the post publishes, an exact replica of it is recreated & sent to the end of the Queue again -- to land in the next available open spot.

This feature works great for re-posting upcoming events and things you want to make sure are seen.

The Queue saves the headache of having to remember which times to post at -- and the Re-Queue guarantees you will always have content posting to my page.

Every 10 days or so replace the Re-Queue posts with fresh content.

A posting schedule is critical for any successful Facebook page. Just decide what & when you're going to post -- then stick to it.

7. Monitor & Measure

Sit back & evaluate what works. Take some time once a month to explore your page's Insights. Identify what worked & what didn't.