Likes, a feeling a few notches below love. Likes at one time was a warm fuzzy feeling that you got when you felt affection towards a person or a thing. “I really like you.” As kids, the things that most like are eating, sleeping, and playing with friends.
The meaning of “Like” suddenly changed when a particular site began using likes on their webpages. Facebook, once they acquired this social media site, began to integrate the “Like” button feature on their own site, this as an expression of ones level of… Like.
They doing so altered the way we think and use the word “like.” A word that we all once used in any sentence, has now become an adjective. Facebook has hijacked the word but haven’t completely destroyed it.
So on with getting more “likes” for your FanPage. What we all crave for are genuine real likes. Some will extend themselves far into virtual sinkholes, pray to the social media gods, just to get more likes. It’s become serious business.
Me Likey You Long Time
Obviously the more quality that the likes are the better. You want those liking you to pay attention and interact, click on your posts, comment, and then share your posts at will. So that becomes the key, to develop a community on Facebook that has high engagement.
To get likes, the easiest way becomes giving away free stuff to get a like, known as incentivizing. You’re giving away things or a gift in trade for a like. Some may think that’s unethical.
To Grow Your FanPage
To grow your FanPage followers, what you need is to give them what they want, whatever that may be, something that will turn their lives for the better or brighter than it currently is.
So it’s not about sending out emails or creating Facebook ads to seduce them with gift cards or a chance to win something.
You need to convince them why they should be liking your page. Without that, all your likes will be unresponsive and fake.
Their suspicions and expectations will be skewed from the beginning, and you won’t get them to do what you want them to, which is to engage.
Incentivizing “Likes” For Your FanPage
So why then would you offer incentives to get likes, which means giving away a prize in exchange for they liking your FanPage. What you should also be telling them is what they’re getting into as well.
For instance, a Real Estate website with a FanPage asks you to like their page, and once you do, as an incentive, you’ll be entered to win a $100 Gift Card.
So you like that FanPage, but you have absolutely no interest in buying a house anytime soon, so you become annoyed with all of the “Open House” postings on your newsfeed, then you eventually “unlike” the page.
How To Make Incentives Work
If you decide to offer an incentive to someone for liking your FanPage, begin with those who already like your page, and are interested in your product or service already. Give your current “Likers” some type of reward for sharing your FanPage to others.
Incentivize those in other similar social communities such as your email list, Twitter followers, or LinkedIn account, to like and spread your Facebook FanPage.
The incentive should have value to your community. It could be either a value-added product or service of yours, or coop with a partner, which offers something worthy to your community members.
Facebook Advertising For Your FanPage
The issue marketers have with any type of advertising is that their ad budget can vanish in a flash, with no results if done incorrectly. So most are terrified by the word “advertise” with an exclamation point.
But all you need is just several dollars to do some targeted testing. On Facebook, all you need is just $5 to start. The cost difference of sacrificing that specialty coffee for a cup of regular coffee.
Two Methods Of Facebook Advertising
The first is purchasing a “Promote Page” ad for as little as $5, which will buy you an entire day of advertising. If you research the precise target audience for your ad, you should be able to generate anywhere between 5 to 20 authentic new “Likes.”
The second method is using Facebook’s “Boost Post” feature. Boosting is easy as clicking that little blue button on the post of your FanPage. You can also start with $5, and often, that’s all you need to get results.
You also need to research and test to find the right audience to boost your post to, along with having appropriate content. If done correctly, you should be able to attract some new community members where they’ll like your FanPage.
Provided that your content of your post is relevant to your target market, you can get results such as the following. For Example.
Target Market: Healthcare Professionals Worldwide
Total Spent: $6.32
The Results:
Reach – 5,752
Link Clicks – 157
Page Likes – 7
Post Likes – 49
Guest Promoting
Guest promoting is perhaps the most difficult as well as the most creative method. What you’re doing is searching for a like minded partner. Someone who’ll compliment what you do, while they having a similar targeted audience.
What you do is cross promote each others FanPages. They post on your behalf content that you’ve recently written, asking their audience to like your page.
Then you do the same for them, you cross promote their post on your FanPage. This could be a weekly activity which also works well on Instagram.
You could also offer some type of incentive for those who happened to like either FanPage. Give away something of value such as a gift card of your product.