However, I’ve seen plenty of small businesses with 10k fans that have nothing going on in terms of conversation and sharing. So, make sure that you never abandon what social media is all about, which is starting a conversation and building relationships.

If you’re looking for some organic ways to generate more fans to your business page, here are a few ideas that promote engagement while kickstarting your efforts to gain more fans.

Contests and Giveaways – The easiest way to attract new fans on your page is to give something away and/or come up with a great contest idea that generates content from your fan base. Photo contests are always fun, and scavenger hunts separate your casual fan from a die-hard, raving fan. Make sure that you do not run any contests/giveaways directly on your Timeline. If you do, you’re violating Facebook’s terms and conditions. They don’t want businesses abusing the viral nature of their social network.

Your options are running the contest on a third-party app like Wildfire or Shortstack. If you’re not too tech-savvy, you can ask us to help you create a contest app for your page or you can promote an offline contest/giveaway on your Timeline. For instance, reveal a “secret phrase” on your Timeline to all of your fans that allows them to come into the restaurant or business, say the secret phrase, and redeem the prize.

Post content that people want to share. Not very many people on Facebook feel compelled to help you out by sharing your promotions and specials. So, you can push your product all you want, but people aren’t dying to give you free publicity. What kind of content should you post that people want to share? I’m glad you asked!

1. Videos
2. Behind-the-scenes photos
3. Anything funny or inspirational
4. Anything involving cute kitties (i’m serious)
5. Exclusive content (a secret phrase that gets people free food would fall into this category)

Take your marketing offline. You’ve got customers and Raving Fans walking into your restaurant every day. Capture them as Facebook fans while they’re in the restaurant. Create bag stuffer flyers and include a QR code that takes them straight to your Facebook page on their mobile phone. Put up a poster, front desk sign, or table tent with a QR code.

Leverage Email marketing. If you’ve got a big email list, use it to drive subscribers to your Facebook page. Create an exclusive incentive just for your email subscribers. It’s one of the easiest and free ways to use one of your other marketing assets to generate new Facebook fans.

Create employee incentives. Get your team members involved and excited about your Facebook page by creating an incentive for them to share the Facebook page with their personal Facebook friends. Not only can you provide an incentive to your fans to hit a certain milestone, but you can also offer an incentive to your team members. For instance, if we hit 2,500 Facebook fans in the next 30 days, everyone gets an iTunes gift card. You’ll be surprised how much of a response you’ll get by offering small rewards to your team.

Do you have any ideas that don’t require spending advertising dollars on Facebook? Post them in the comment section below!

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways To Scare Off Your Facebook Fans
2. Best Practices For Facebook Page Management
3. How To Identify Loyal Facebook Fans

Changes to Facebook Pages 

• Fans can now message their favorite brands directly through the private message feature.
• You can add a cover image. Dimensions are 851px by 315px.
• Profile picture dimensions are now 180px by 180px.
• You can “pin” posts to the top of your timeline which will remain on your page for up to 7 days.
• New “admin” panel at the top of the page allows admins to see their notifications, messages and insights all in one place when they log into their page.
• Photos, “like” count, and custom apps are now positioned at the top right of the Timeline
• The “About” section is at the top of the Timeline, so make sure the information is accurate and up-to-date!

Changes to Custom Tabs

• Tabs are now referred to as apps.
• Existing tabs are still at 520px by default.
• All existing tabs can be switched to 810px with an app setting.
• You can no longer have a default landing tab, but you can feature up to 3 apps on the cover and you can pin posts to draw attention to apps.
• Visible apps are now called “Favorites”. When you remove an app from Favorites, it becomes invisible. You can click the plus button when in app edit mode to add it back to Favorites.
• Visitors can see icons for up to 12 apps by clicking the down arrow to the right of the top 3 featured apps.
• You can have icons for 10 custom apps (photos and likes will always take up two of the app spots). All other apps are still active, but you’ll need to direct users there via a link.
• You can change the cover icon for an app by going to Edit Page > Apps > Edit Settings > Custom Tab Image.

How To Enable Timeline Mode Early 

If you don’t switch to Timeline for your business page by March 30, Facebook is “kind” enough to do it for you. If you want to embrace change early, you should see this message the next time you navigate to your page as an admin of the page.

Click on “Preview”. You should then see this:

Then click on “Publish View”. You’re all set!

Frequently Asked Questions 

Where are my custom tabs?

I told you, they’re called “apps” now. It’ll be a struggle for us to not call them tabs anymore, either. So, they’re located just underneath your new cover photo to the right. you can only see three apps at once. The rest of them are hidden. Click on the little arrow, and you should see all of them. If you click on each icon, you’ll see that they still function perfectly, but they now look a little out of place because they’re about two-thirds of the maximum width allowed on the page now.

Can I still set a default landing tab?

Unfortunately, no. But, it’s not the end of the world. The new Timeline features allow you to use the pinning feature to highlight certain content for up to 7 days. You could create a nice teaser graphic for your contest, then link to the custom app and pin it to the top of your Timeline.

Also, remember that the new cover photos allow you a lot of space to be creative and visually represent your business the way default landing apps used to.

What are the dimensions of all the new features?

Here’s the quick and dirty. Write these on a post-it note and stick it on your desk:

Cover image: 851x315px
Profile picture: 180x180px
Custom apps: 810px wide
Custom app icons: 111x74px

Can I still run a fan gate?

Yes, you can and you should still do it even though there’s no more default landing tab. Why? Because, it still allows you to hide exclusive content until the user has “liked” the page. This means that coupon incentives and “liking” to enter a giveaway/contest is alive and well.

What are pinned posts?

You can select your top posts and choose to “pin” that post. Pinning a post will move it to the top left of your timeline feed for up to seven days at a time. Pinning can be used to promote custom apps, showcase a photo or video, offer a coupon or feature a timely post.

If you need additional assistance with customizing your Timeline page, give us a call at 352-871-0794!

Related posts:

1. Effective Ways To Use Facebook Questions For Business Pages

The great thing about Chick-fil-A is that you do know who these people are, but have you considered giving them an extra bit of attention? Maybe you do already. If so, I would love to hear what you’re doing. But if not, let me suggest a couple of things to further engage your Raving Facebook Fans.

First, determine who is the most involved with your Facebook page, or even Facebook fans who are occasionally interacting with your page but are very active in their social circle on Facebook and have a decent number of friends. Make a list of these Raving Fans and then write out general details about each person on your list. Who are they, where do they go to school/church, are they in a band, do they play football? You’ll start to see who you’re really familiar with and who you might need to get to know.

I think this is important because I’m starting to think about the different audiences that make up my Facebook fans and how my posts relate to each group. No doubt you’ll have a diverse group of people who interact with your page, so you’ll want to make sure that your posts appeal to each in the group. I

I’m not saying that every post should appeal to all audiences, but it’s good to make sure if you write one post to the High School Student then your next post should appeal to young parents. You could go as far as to write your posts as if you’re writing directly to the Raving Fan who represents each audience. Addressing posts in this way will really help you to engage with your fans and not just talk at them.

Focus Groups make me cringe, but set up a quarterly meeting with a group of your most involved Facebook/Twitter followers and I think you’ll marketing efforts will improve. Ask your group questions like the following

“I see from Facebook Insights that our most successful posts are Photo albums from events. What are your favorite posts?”

“What would you like more of from us?  Photos, Contest, or Polls?”

“Have you ever shared a post from our restaurant with your friends? Which post and why did you share it?”

“Do you follow other businesses or websites on Facebook that post things you enjoy? Tell me a little about that”

What are some other questions that might be helpful?

Before you take a look at your Insights on Facebook, make sure you know the people behind those statistics. It’s really easy to get caught up in building a fanbase or increasing your interaction stats, but you’ll get the most out of Facebook if you focus on the people behind those profiles. 

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways To Scare Off Your Facebook Fans
2. Social Media Marketing FAQ
3. Best Practices For Facebook Page Management

While large numbers of “likes” on your page is important for the reach of your message, it shouldn’t be your main focus. Your main focus should be building a strong community of followers that engage with you on a personal level on your Facebook page and share your content with their friends and family. It’s all about interaction, not numbers!

Having said that, there are many best practices you can use to build your following so that you’re attracting quality “likes” or fans, not just random fans that don’t care about your restaurant or your marketing message.

Always remember the 4 to 1 principle 

It’s as simple as this: For every one marketing message you push out on Facebook, there should be four status updates that are interactive in nature, causing your following to start a conversation with you and engage with you and your restaurant.

Post only interesting content that catches their eye

In a social network of 600 million people and the average Facebooker has over 200 friends, your page updates are getting lost in the cesspool status updates in their news feed. You must post content that’s interesting and catches their eye. Facebook questions, videos, and photos are all great content to get people to care about your Facebook page. Asking a simple question, polling your audience, or creating a “fill in the blank” statement are all great ways to prompt your following to start a conversation with you.

Promote your Facebook page in restaurant

Many business owners overlook the power of promoting their social profiles to the people that are walking in their door every day. Don’t be obnoxious about it, but post your facebook page vanity URL on your receipts, create bag stuffers with the URL on it, and put signage on your front door and counter space. Even consider table tents prompting guests to “like” your page, but don’t just ask for the “like”, tell them why they should follow you on Facebook.

Make your page feel exclusive 

If you choose to run promotions, make it exclusive to to your Facebook following. “Secret Phrases” are always fun and so are “Facebook Fan Only” events that you announce on your page.

Reward your following

You’ll create quite a buzz around your Facebook page if you start recognizing outstanding Facebook fans. This could be the guy that always shows up for your promotions, always comments on your page, or someone who posts their own photos or videos of you them and their family at your restaurant. Make them feel special, and they’ll share your page with others.

No related posts.

Provide a secret phrase, say it’s a thank you for being a Facebook Fan, and let people tell their friends about it if they want.

This both brings people into your restaurant who weren’t planning on visiting and it promotes your Facebook Page. If I find out being a Facebook Fan gets me secret promos to my favorite restaurant you bet I’m going to sign up.

What is the ideal number of updates I can post in a Day/Week/Month?

Non-promotional posts (the 4 in the 4 to 1 principle) aren’t annoying if they’re interesting. If you have a parrot eating waffel fries AND Justin Beiber in your restaurant on the same day, I want to know about both. And I want minute by minute updates on the parrot.

I could care less about the Beibs, though your raving fans are probably the opposite. You can post as many of these as you want.

If you’re posting fan interaction content like fill in the blank or questions then give your fans time to interact and use your posting energy to reply with responses.

If you’re promoting something, only promote one thing per day. The more things you promote at the same time the more confused I get.

How can I monitor who is unliking my Facebook Page?

Facebook Insights give you TONS of information about who is visiting your page. Here is the official guide to using Facebook Insights:

http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Pages_Insights_Guide_Updated.pdf

How do I post to my page from my iPhone?

http://stuffwegoogle.com/post/3549073104/how-to-add-facebook-page-iphone

Should I put a ton of effort into Facebook if it’s going to die like Myspace did 3 years ago?

Yes you should. Facebook is a monster and will be around for a while. Also, your Facebook marketing skills will help you in other areas of web marketing.

How do we create a private Facebook page or Group for our employees? 

Created a get started guide here: http://stuffwegoogle.com/post/3549489001/how-to-create-facebook-group

You have to be friends with a person to add them yourself, but once you add your leadership they can add others if you’re hesitant about being friends with a lot of people.

If we set up a twitter account for our restaurant, what is the recommended user name?

CFA_____  so Chick-fil-A at The La Habra Marketplace is http://twitter.com/cfalahabra

Should I have the statuses posted to Facebook automatically to Twitter and how?

We are not  fans of anything being automatically posted to your Facebook or Twitter page. If you’re not going to be actively posting to your Twitter profile then it’s of no value to your Twitter followers to follow you if they also follow you on Facebook and get the same content.

That said, you can visit http://www.facebook.com/twitter/ and link your Facebook page to your Twitter profile. You’ll hurt my feelings, but I can take it.

Would an individual have more than one twitter account?

You can have a personal twitter that isn’t associate with your restaurant, but I would only have one twitter profile for the restaurant and if you want to identify who is tweeting then just put “-Tara” at the end of the tweet.

Related posts:

1. Why Social Media Marketing Works Best For Small Business
2. What Social Media Marketing Really Is

CREATING A DEAL:

When logged in as an admin of your page, click on “Edit Page” in the upper right corner of your Facebook page.

Navigate to the “Deals” tab. Here is where you’ll be able to choose your type of deal and set it up. Facebook makes it very easy to follow the steps for setting one up.

All Facebook Deals must first be approved, and it typically takes 24 to 72 business hours to get approved.

DEALS:

Individual Deal- Reward every check in. You can reward using a start and end date and time,number of claims (first 100), Limit one per customer, one per customer per day, or unlimited.

Friend Deal- Reward a group of people: up to 8 friends. You can reward using a start and end date and time,number of claims (first 100), Limit one per customer, or one per customer per day or unlimited.

Loyalty Deal- Reward after a certain amount of check ins. You can reward using a start and end date and time,number of claims (first 100) or unlimited.

Charity Deal- Pledge to donate to a charity when customers check in. You can reward using a start and end date and time,number of claims (first 100), Limit one per customer, one per customer per day, or unlimited.

To download the official Facebook PDF about check-in deals, CLICK HERE.

No related posts.

So yes, it IS possible to scare off your Facebook fans, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. Here are 5 ways to scare them off. (Take note, we don’t recommend them, but rather, we hope that you learn from them and do the opposite!)

1. Don’t follow the 4 to 1 principle. This principle is to post 4 conversational, interactive updates for every one promotional update. If don’t follow this general rule, your fans will quickly get annoyed by you, and think of you like every other business that’s just trying to push their marketing promos down their throat. Be different, get to know your fans, and get them talking about you in a positive way.
2. Post too much. There’s no strict rule about how much to post per day or week, but we generally recommend no more than 3 to 4 posts per day on Facebook. With Facebook, it’s more about quality. Create one great post per day that a bunch of your fans “like” or comment on, and the viral nature of Facebook will take over and that post will travel a long way through Facebook.
3. Post the same thing too much. If you really want to annoy your fans, keep posting about that event you’re having two months from now. Variety is very important on Facebook. Show your creativity. The only thing you can never post too much of is photos. Facebook users love photos, and they never get sick of them.
4. Never give back. Your Facebook fans do enough to grace you with showing up on their wall and comment/like your posts. The least you could do is a giveaway or recognize a great customer. if you want to scare them away, don’t ever reward them.
5. Be defensive. It’s inevitable that you’re going to make a customer upset at some point, and the power of social media gives those customers unfettered access to letting everyone know about their bad experience. If you want to scare off more fans, then react in a defensive nature or worse, delete their post altogether. If someone leaves a complaint on your wall, address the issue, gather more information, and let them know how you’re going to make it right.

So, did I get my point across? Obviously, you want to attract more fans, not scare them off. But often I see too many business owners and their page administrators doing things that are doing the opposite. If you have any other questions about running a Facebook page, don’t hesitate to ask us!

Related posts:

1. Effective Ways To Use Facebook Questions For Business Pages

Facebook created Questions and placed it in the walls status update area as an additional option as a piece of content to post on your personal or business wall. When it was first introduced, it blew up. There were polls everywhere from “Who’s your favorite Saved By The Bell Character” to “Coke or Pepsi?”. Since then, its usage has died down a lot on the personal level, but it remains a very powerful tool for businesses to use on their Facebook pages to force their fans to interact with them and create a viral buzz about their Facebook page. Here are some effective ways to use Facebook Questions for Facebook business pages:

1. Collect data about your products/services. There’s no better way to learn about what your customers like best and least about your business. Create a question that asks them to rate a new product on a scale of 1 to 5. A good example would be when Chick-fil-A comes out with a new milkshake flavor. Ask your fans what they think, and you’ll see how well they respond.
2. Empower your fans to make decisions for you. If need some fresh ideas for what to do on Family/Kid’s Night or if you have a bunch of ideas, but you can’t figure out which ideas are good and which ones aren’t good, ask your fans in the form of a Facebook Question to decide for you.
3. Take advantage of current events/sporting events. If you live in a city with rabid sports fans of a particular team or a major news event just occurred, post a Facebook Question about that event. If you’re in St. Louis, then you should definitely be polling your fans about what the final score of each World Series game will be.
4. Get to know your fans. Ask them questions that help you learn more about who’s following you and who patronizes your restaurant most often. It could be anything from “what’s your favorite thing to do in (name of your city)?” to “What’s your favorite item on the menu?”.

Next time you’re struggling with making a trivial decision or you just want to collect some marketing ammo, try Facebook Questions. It’s viral nature has enormous potential. It’s a great, organic way to gain valuable information and possibly more targeted fans to your business page.

No related posts.

No related posts.

Related posts:

1. Use Facebook Status Tags As Free Advertising For Your Small Business