Friday, December 14, 2012

6 ways to spark activity on your Facebook page

Being an admin of your own Facebook page can be frustrating if you are not attracting the traffic you would like.  I am sharing five things with you here that will help grow your community and spark conversations among your fans if you remain vigilant.

Before we dive in, let me just say that Facebook is a place of many distractions.  If you want to get people's attention, you need to post consistently; your posts need to outshine all of the others things being shared.  You also need to figure out what times of the day most of your followers will most likely see and respond to what you post.  There is nothing wrong with taking a poll right on the page to see who is paying attention to you.

Collaborate with other pages

1.  "Like" other pages using your page profile

Sometimes the majority of folks who have liked your page are your friends or family who get a lot of activity coming their way from you.  What you need to do is search within Facebook for pages similar to yours and copy/paste the URLS onto a document.  Select pages that are very active and share quality content regularly.  Pages with 500+ likes are preferable. 

You will need to like the pages using your page profile and not your personal profile. If you attempt to search these pages while you are logged on as your page profile, it will not be as easy to find them. That is why it is best to do the searching first and save them in a document that you can access while you are logged using your page's identity.

"Like" each page on your list. The admin of each page (sometimes there are more than one on a page) will get a notification that you liked their page, and they will come and check it out.

2.  Pick posts from the other page's newsfeed to share

When an admin of another page that you "liked" visits your page, make sure you make a good impression by having already shared content from their page.  There is a special way you need to do this. 

After you have "liked" a significant number of  pages (50 or more), you will start to receive great resources in the newsfeed of your Facebook Page.  Select a post to share.  Be sure to "like" the post.

You can share posts from other pages right from your newsfeed. When you do this, ALWAYS include "Shared by" and tag the page by putting a "@" and typing the page name. The page will come up in a drop down menu while you type. Select it. This provides a live link from your page to the page where the post came from.
The Facebook page will appear in the drop down menu as you type.

 
Members of both pages have a bridge they can cross to check out the other page. You access your page's newsfeed by switching from your profile to the page profile and clicking on "Home." This is a wonderful way to network.

 
Notice the post has a live link to The Slave Dwelling Project Facebook Page, and sharing the album photo takes up quite a bit of real estate in the newsfeed.  It will be fun to watch the activity from this post:




The Slave Dwelling Project

 3.  Feature another Facebook page

African American History featured page likes.

Choose a different page to feature on your page each month that offers resources to complement the ones you offer.   Discuss the page you choose in a blog post or in a post on your Facebook page.  Set up the page likes on your page so that the page you choose to highlight is featured.  Your fans will be able to like that page right from your page.  Send a message to the page admin to announce they were chosen to be featured.  See if that does not get you a mention and a link back to your page!

You will find the place to add featured likes by clicking on "Edit Page" on the Admin Panel.  Then click "Featured."



Reconstruct your posts

4.  Post mostly visuals
Saving Stories

If you are posting using the page profile, your page posts have the potential of ending up in the newsfeeds of your followers.  When they "like," share, or comment on a post, Facebook will continue to let your posts show, and their friends may also see when they interact. 

For sometime now I have noticed that when I post a photo and add the link to my articles, the post gets seen and shared by more people.  There is not much to compete with a post like this in my fans newsfeed either.  When I post these large visuals, they know it is something important, and that the post contains a link to an article of substance. 

This particular post above was shared four times from my page, Saving Stories.  At least three of the shares were in different communities, and the virality was 43% on this post according to the insights. 

It is more imporant now than ever that we get as much attention as we can on each post.  Think of creative things to post.  Share photos along with links instead of just sharing a link.  Share more video, but share a very short thought along with the video to introduce it.

5.  Share some small gem of your expertise

Make at least one of your posts each day a useful resource. Share why the resource will solve a problem.    At least once a week, share an article you have written.  Ask your community members to give their opinions about what has worked or not worked for them. Allow for short or yes/no answers.

People more than likely come to your page to learn more about your product or service.  You can find something each day that relates to what you do so that they feel like they are learning something from you.  When it is time to buy, they will rememeber you and they will share their experience with their friends.

6.  Share something inspiring or humorous (in good taste of course)

It's not so bad! Put a smile on your face!



Daily Morning Picdump No. 140

People want to feel good, and they want to have a chuckle every now and then.  Share quotes and sayings and let your sense of humor shine through.  Slow down, and create opportunities for your community to have those moments.  Be sure to ask them what they think or how they feel.  Once you get a response, help to keep the conversation going a little.  If your commumity has been silent for a while it will take a bit of effort to get them to open up.

I hope these six suggestions bring you results.  They have really helped me as I have stayed consistent.  You are invited to join Extend Your Reach on Facebook. Just like click the Like box on this page.  Also, we have a new G+ community.  Until next time, you can follow me on all My Social Sites

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