You can have several objectives for your digital communication: get likes on Facebook , increase the level of interactions, give more visibility to your publications, multiply the number of mentions of your brand etc. All of these goals are measurable and very useful for generating monthly social media reputation reports.
Last August, Facebook announced on its page for developers that November would stop “like gating” or in other words, access to specific content in exchange for a “Like”. In this way, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network will reward more the quality of content and actions put in place by brands to attract a genuinely interested audience, than “superficial incentives”. What will always be allowed is to encourage people to start sessions on applications, to check in certain places or to obtain a promotion via the page of an application.
This new standard shows us one thing: QUALITY IS BETTER THAN QUANTITY . No need to strive to get more fans or followers on your social profiles. Before launching a campaign, determine what your goals are and the audience you want to reach . Anyone can offer a tablet or a smartphone in exchange for a “Like” but that will only bring more fans to your pages, and probably fans with a profile far from your target, rather passive. This is something that we have all realized with experience and that Facebook confirms today.
Faced with this situation, I offer you four options to successfully increase the size of your community on your Facebook page:
- Facebook Ads ads
- Regular publication on your page
- Original campaigns
- Get facebook likes
Obtaining “likes” on Facebook through advertising
The latest Facebook Ads update has made the process of posting ads on this social network much easier, and made it more intuitive. The first step is to select the arrow in the top menu of your Facebook profile and click on “Create Ads”. To get started, you need to tell Facebook what kind of results you want from your ads. Here we will choose the “Likes of a Page”. And then we can create our ad for Facebook and integrate with images, messages, links etc. Remember to make multiple versions of the same ad to test the results and see what works best.
The most important thing when planning a Facebook Ads campaign is:
- Segmentation of your audience. Just because you’re planning a campaign to reach over a million people doesn’t mean you’ll get more results. The ideal is to try to segment the audience of your campaign as much as possible: by location, language, age, interest etc. The closer you get to your ideal target, the more likely you will be to interest them and get “likes” on your page. But be careful of the keywords you use, especially when it comes to defining interests. In our case for example, using the word “PR” will not allow us to reach our target audience, since it can also be linked to other sectors that are of no interest to us. We must therefore look for other keywords related to our sector of activity such as “corporate communication” or “public relations” …
- The auctions . This is one way to use your budget. These auctions depend on your advertising goals . Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) is ideal if you want people to see your ad. To get “likes” on your page, Facebook advocates goal-based bidding, so you only pay when the ad goes to people in your audience who are likely to achieve your goal and like it. your page.
- Third point, don’t forget that Facebook is a very visual social network where the content is very valuable. Schedule ads that go beyond “Follow us on Facebook!” », And think about special actions like promotions, contests, product launches etc. You will get fans through the content of your ads.
Get “likes” with regular posts on your FanPage
One of the basic rules in digital communication is regularity in publications . On Facebook it is also important to maintain a certain frequency of publication per week. For this, we must not only have internal content to distribute but also rely on the curation of external and quality content in connection with our sector .
To monitor and control the frequency of publications, the best is to use a weekly publication checklist or an editorial calendar in which is indicated the different content to be published on social networks.
We hear a lot about the best time to post on Facebook. Like on Twitter, there are hours, days with peaks in social media connections and you have to take them into account; your Facebook posts may reach more people depending on when they are posted. The American company Sure Payroll published in April an infographic with the best times and days to distribute your content on social networks. This type of guide can be useful but it is not the solution for everything either! The best is that you succeed in defining yourself your schedules and days to publish and for that you have to… test!
Also remember that here too creativity is important. Even if you post regularly, don’t put aside the curation of your posts: think of an original, catchy post that invites action.
Increase your community through original Facebook campaigns
If you want to stand out from other Facebook pages and do something different to get a bigger audience, aim for original campaigns! You don’t necessarily need a big investment, just creativity.
This is what Burger King did in Spain using the magic word “free”. The brand offered a challenge to its followers: if they managed to reach 250,000 fans in one week, all Spaniards would have had unlimited fries. The campaign consisted of four posters and a video, with Burger King employees as the protagonists.
In just one week, the goal was reached. The fast food chain gave out free fries for an entire day to anyone who was near or in the restaurant. The result of the campaign?
- 126,071 new “Likes”
- 3,457 reviews
- 34,380 shared posts
This operation was carried out in April 2013. The Burger King Spain Fan page now has over 500,000 fans. A success !
For Pepsi, the investment was a little higher, but no less original. The brand installed a vending machine for drinks that did not accept change, but “likes”. To get a drink, you had to click “Like” on the Pepsi FanPage, select the drink of your choice and voila! A Pepsi was coming out of the machine!
The campaign, which took place in Antwerp during a Beyoncé concert, generated a significant increase in her Facebook community, as well as significant media coverage on the press and traditional blogs .
Competitions are no longer so effective in gaining the attention of customers. The challenge now is to reach your target thanks to quality and original content consistent with the positioning of your brand. Consider retaining your followers!