Last week we spoke about whether or not a Facebook Fan Page was the way forward. Now that FB has announced that you can update your Twitter profile from Facebook I think the 'game' has officially changed. Not only can you post more content on your page but now you can also use the latest Social Media darling (twitter) at the same time.
Here are some methods we plan to use in order to grow our fan numbers on our page. The more of us who use the pages, the better.
1. Advertise on Facebook
Often advertising online can be a black hole. We know this because we have spent money advertising and know the CTR's and conversion rates. Generally they are quite low.
However, with Facebook you are in a position to target your ads quite intensely. My plan is to spend only $10 a day for 30 days.
We have advertised on Facebook before, it was our first time advertising online and what I thought were terrible CTR's were actually slightly above the norm for the amount of money we were spending on them per month. In fact I can name quite a few sites in our niche which have given us much worse results.
2. Change the link on your Twitter page to the Fan Page URL
We strongly believe in creating tunnels to your core business. In our case our core is Obox Design and Obox Themes. The only place we advertise them is on From the Couch and here. We spend more time promoting our blogs than our core business.
The idea is that it's easier to market content to many users than it is to sell them a product directly. We focus on building up a trusted brand through sharing and connecting (which is the social media way these days) and it shows through the sales of our themes and the comments on our blogs.
So by linking up the URL in your twitter account you are creating a tunnel to the central hub of your content. Your fan page can contain much more content that your twitter page. So consider sending them there first. That is especially helpful if you have more than one blog that you want people to know about.
3. Share your Facebook URL more than the other social links
If you have managed to secure a Vanity URL for your Fan Page then you are in the pound seats. More people know about Facebook than they do about Twitter. So (depending on your audience of course) saying 'Facebook.com/myurl' may yield better CTR than 'twitter.com/myurl' due to the familiarity of the site.
At the end of our From the Couch shows we used to end with a link to Twitter and a link to our RSS. We have now removed the link to our RSS and now mention the Fan Page URL.
I suggest you consider doing the same. I would propose going as far as replacing your RSS icon at the top right of your blog to a Facebook icon. I dare you to try it. You will gain more interaction with your user if they become a fan than if they subscribe to your RSS.
4. Create Facebook specific content
I think that this is one of the major moves to drive traffic to your fan page. Creating unique content that people can only see on your Fan Page is a big draw card.
Just like unique content on your blog can drive a huge amount of traffic, carrying that concept over to your page can yield similar results. I think a Fan Page like PSDtuts is already considering ways of publishing unique content on their FB page.
The content does not have to be any different in nature compared to the content on your blog but remember that there are limitations on how you can present the content. Creating written tutorials may be a bit tough, I am not aware of the ability to paste images in your notes section.
However, with video, the possibilities are endless. We are considering posting content on Facebook which is not entirely design/dev focused but more along the theme that the new From the Couch format is taking.
5. Create an App for your page
Another big draw card which can yield some pretty cool results. Facebook allows you to add 'Boxes' to your page.
So consider adding content from your site in a box on your Fan Page by using the Facebook's API. Winelibrary TV / Garyvee do it with their videos. All the latest vids can be watched on Facebook without having to leave the site. They simply query their latest video's and boom, it's all there for the fans to see.
Have you ever thought of moving entire posts into those boxes? I'm talking about the comments as well. The possibilities are quite large.
Bonus point. Create conversation with the discussion board
Content and Conversation. You have the content, now start a conversation. The Fan Pages offer a kind of Forum where everyone can interact. We are starting to use this section more and more.
It's quite easy to do. Just start a topic which is relevant (maybe on today's news) and then tweet the link.
If the subject is good enough people will have opinions. Opinions often need to be aired and you can be the soap box provider. No rocket science.
To Summarize
I have no doubt many people are going to be staring at this post and thinking 'waste of time'. That's all good, because while they rest on their laurels we will be working our faces off (no pun intended) to build a community on the biggest community platform there is.
So you can either wait for it to happen and then jump on the train, or you can start now and wave as you pass everyone by. All five of these steps will involve quite a bit of work (except the twitter URL), I would say each of these points on their own, contain 5 small steps.
We'd love to hear your feedback! Oh, and join our fan page Facebook.com/FromTheCouch ;)
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