It’s easy to feel disheartened when your carefully crafted Facebook posts are going out to a total of 13 people.
Whilst a large Facebook following doesn’t necessarily unlock any magical perks, it is an important extension of your firm’s online “shop front”.
Having a large following can help you to:
- Instil trust – “We’re an established company with a following of real people”
- Demonstrate your expertise – “We’re a knowledgeable firm who share valuable content to help our existing and potential clients”
- Reach more people – “The content we share is worth sharing with others”
The larger your following, the greater your chances of attracting new, potential clients to you. The more those followers engage with your page, the greater your chances of reaching followers and non-followers alike. It’s a cycle that you can most definitely use to your advantage!
With that in mind, here are five simple things that you can start doing today to give yourself the best chance of growing your page likes and followers.
1. Invite to like
The first step is to send an invite to your personal friends using the community functionality on your page. Encourage any team members who are page admins to do so too.
You can even edit the message that is sent along with your invitation to keep it personalised and friendly.
Since you may not be friends with your clients on Facebook, an off-platform option would be to send a quick email.
Include a link to the page and give them a good reason to hit the ‘Like’ button (e.g. you could run a competition when you hit a certain number of likes).
2. Post the content people want to see
Remember: Facebook is a social network at heart. Most people aren’t on the platform to get their daily news (financial or otherwise). They’re there to engage with the brands they love and be entertained.
Avoid the trap of filling your feed with nothing but your latest finance-related articles.
Behind-the-scenes photos, team updates and humour will undoubtedly get you more engagement (and therefore increase your page’s visibility on non-followers feeds) than any other type of content.
Give it a go: post something personal, entertaining, or transparent that shows the human side of your business.
3. Have a chat
There are two quick wins related to having a dialogue with your followers:
- Responding to comments: If someone has taken the time to comment on your post, you should reply to them (unless it’s spam, of course). It lets them know that you value them and their time, and it will encourage others to do the same. Again, more engagement = more visibility to followers and non-followers alike.
- Asking questions: Asking a question in your post copy can really open up the conversation. It encourages engagement and shows you’re listening.
4. Use the algorithm to your advantage
In the past five years, Facebook has made big changes to its algorithm in terms of the pages and content it favours.
Friends and family come first, followed by brands that share content that is informative or entertaining.
Use this to assess the type of content you’re currently posting:
- Does it inform?
- Does it entertain?
If not, back to the drawing board. Remember that by posting the right sort of content, Facebook will make your page more visible to non-followers, therefore giving the best chance of growing your page likes.
5. Review your insights
Finally, it’s so important to take an evidence-based approach and understand what sort of content your followers actually enjoy.
If you head to your page’s ‘Insights’, you can review the success (engagement and reach) of each post you’ve shared.
If you take the time to learn from your mistakes and emulate the sort of content that really speaks to your followers, you’ll be able to grow your page likes much more quickly and efficiently.
Get in touch
Hopefully, this blog gives you some quick and easy tips to implement if you’re looking to grow your Facebook following.
If you’ve got any thoughts or comments on this week’s blog or would like help with your social media strategy, don’t hesitate to get in touch by emailing hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or calling 0115 8965 300.
