5 ways to market your Facebook page on a shoestring
Although I’ve titled this “Five ways to market your Facebook page on a shoestring,” almost all of the tips here involve no cost. So even if you can’t afford to buy a shoestring right now, there are ways you can get more marketing power from your Facebook business or fan page.
1. Ask for fans. The various website plugins we use that give visitors the ability to navigate to our Facebook pages have made us lazy. I like them, but I think they are so common now, people have stopped noticing them. Instead of relying on these icons or badges, ask people to visit and “like” your Facebook page in your blogs and other posts and give them your link in the text. This is more direct and personal.
2. Give people a reason to visit and share your Facebook page. This is a critical point: People must be motivated to visit your page. You can do this by providing excellent content, whipping up some controversy, communicating with visitors who comment, and any other strategy you can think of. Ask yourself, “Would I come back here or recommend it to others?”
3. Promote your Facebook page through other social media channels. Almost everyone has website plugins that send out posts based on new website content; for example, when you publish a blog. Here’s a good Facebook promotion trick: Publish something on Facebook and send notifications out to your other social media accounts. Services like Buffer and Hootsuite have browser extensions or apps that will do this.
4. Get some Facebook plugins/apps to add value to your page. You’ll pay a little for these, but there are plugins that allow you to do things such as offer a free e-book sign up, conduct a giveaway, or hand out coupons. Woobox is one provider for these kinds of add-ons.
5. Take Facebook page marketing offline. One of the Facebook page promotion tricks that many small business owners miss, is to integrate it into the non-digital world. Print your Facebook URL on brochures, advertisements, letterhead, business cards, and other printed materials. (Also, add it to your email signature.) Whenever you give a presentation to a local group, spend a moment to invite your audience to visit your Facebook page.
Facebook continues to be the big kid on the block when it comes to social media platforms. And, while services such as SnapChat appeal to a younger average demographic, the key word there is “average.” Overall, Facebook continues to be popular with every demographic. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to use a shotgun approach.