If you are a business, then you know how important it is to build a community of raving fans. And in the world of Facebook, an engaged group of followers could mean more money in your bank account. But Facebook page followers aren’t always easy to attract.
How to you get more facebook page followers? To get more Facebook page followers you need to invite all people who like, comment, and react to your Facebook posts, run page contents, improve website interaction, post authentic Facebook content, and potentially run targeted ads to specific audiences.
Anyone can get Facebook followers with enough money to run ads, but not everyone can get the right followers who add value to your Facebook page and business. Not every follower is a good follower. Let’s dig a bit deeper into boosting your page likes and business growth.
The best strategy to get more Facebook followers
Sometimes the most obvious actions in life are the ones we miss. In the case of Facebook followers, this happens to be the case. A follower often starts with a post like. They see something you talk about and react to it. Now the ball is in your court.
Once you see someone react positively to your post, then you’ll want to invite them to like your page. Yep, that’s the big tip.
But it’s missed by so many businesses. They assume that if someone likes your post, then they will automatically like your page. This just isn’t the case. People need to greeted at the door and you need to invite them in.
If you are unsure what the difference between a post like and a page like is, take a look at our article on likes vs page followers. It’s important to understand the difference and how Facebook works.
We can’t tell you how many businesses miss this obvious tip. They write and publish amazing content and wonder why no one is liking their page when everyone likes their posts. So close, yet so far. Read the next tip to learn how to invite people into to like your Facebook page.
How do I invite people to like my Facebook page after they like my post?
It’s very easy to invite people to like your Facebook page after they like your post. The main thing to know is that most people are funneled into your fan base/follower list by first liking a post.
First, they like something you create and show appreciation by publicly supporting it with a good ol’ fashioned thumbs up. 👍
If they are extra excited and feeling spicy, they might even give you a ♥️.
Now, you need to take the extra initiative and ensure that you are inviting them to like your page. Once they accept, they’re in your tribe.
How to invite people to like your Facebook page:
- Find a post with likes on them. You’ll see the likes at the bottom of the post next to the blue thumbs up icon.
- Click on it.
- A new screen will appear that will show you all of the people who liked your post.
- Click the “Invite” button next to each person’s name to send an invite to your page.
This is really a great technique to build your audience. You’ve already done the hard work by producing great content that people liked. Now, you need to help those people become part of your inner circle.
And trust us, most people will accept your invitation. They’ve already acknowledged and appreciated your content. This is a sure fire way to build your fan base up quickly.
Heck, even my mom added over 1000 page followers to her business page in a few months with a little bit of work and she still struggles with opening email.
How to automatically increase facebook page likes
The example above was how to do this the manual way. And in the beginning, we recommend you do it this way. You’ll learn Facebook’s platform and understand the important relationship between post likes and page invitations.
But once you graduate from page like newbie to a page like Jedi, you’ll want to automate this process if you can. There is a nifty plugin that we really like at Build Strong called Invite post likers to like page in Facebook™. At 73,00 people strong, it’s a popular plugin.
This tool is amazing because it automatically invites people who liked your post to like your page. It’s a time saver for you each day. We use and really like it.
The Auto Like Caveat for Free Package:
- It’s not a huge time saver if you have a post with only a few likes. It’ll be just as fast for you to press “Invite”.
- It works best when you have posts with more than 30 or 40 likes.
- You still have to open up each post to begin auto-liking. It doesn’t do it automatically through out the day for you (pro version does).
- It can auto-invite your friends to like your page. This is a nice feature.
The FBLikeInviter plugin also has a Pro version. This is where the true time saving comes in.
It removes a few of the caveats above. It will scan your page for all posts on your page, opens them, invites people on your behalf, closes the post, and the moves on to the next one.
It’s worth its weight in Gold if you post a lot and have a lot of new post likes each day or week. Another cool feature of the Pro version is it will auto-like and COMMENT on shared posts. This can help with engagement and keeping the conversation moving. Here are the package break downs for you to check out.
We recommend the pro version. It’s not that expensive ($30 forever). It’ll save you a lot of time and take this off your plate each day.
Why is it important to have page likes on facebook?
Page likes are one of the only ways to have any chance at interacting with your fans. It’s like having an email list or any repository of potential customers. You now have access to them when you want to show them something of value.
Look, we know Facebook hasn’t been kind to business owners. Even when you have loads of followers, it doesn’t mean that they’ll see your new posts. In fact, estimates are showing that less than 2% of your Facebook fans will see your posts organically. It’s not good.
But, it’s not all bad news. The are two really valuable aspects of building up your page followers/fans: 1) audience building and 2) Facebook group engagement.
Audience building
Once you begin to build a solid base of page followers, you can advertise directly to them. They’ve gone from cold lead to interested in who you are.
Facebook enables you to market directly to your audience. It’s a game-changer.
While this might seem like a no-brainer, people who haven’t built up a solid audience automatically start at an advertising disadvantage. They are shooting at fish in a barrel with the lights turned off, blind-folded, one-armed… with a BB gun.
But not you. You have an audience who has shown interest in what you offer. And the best part is you can create look-a-like audiences who are just like them.
You may have found 500 followers who love your product, but Facebook will go out and find 500 more people just like them: same age, gender, interests, locations, etc.
This is how Facebook marketing differs from Google, Youtube, banners ads, LinkedIn, and other search platforms. You are targeting the characteristics of people, not just the search phrases they type in their browser.
Facebook group engagement
When you have a core of followers on your page, you can now invite these people into a special Facebook group. If you aren’t sure how to create a Facebook group, use our guide below to help you along your journey.
Building a group is huge because this authentically builds page engagement. If you want to create raving fans/customers, you need them engage with you.
This is why Facebook moved away from business page organic reach. Everyone cried, but when I look back, I understood the decision.
Facebook wants authentic engagement. People started hiring companies to auto-post content for them and business engagement wasn’t genuine. We’ve tried that route and it gave us ZERO in return.
When you auto-post stuff you aren’t creating, everyone’s personal pages get cluttered with non-personalized trash. This is the reason we are stuck with sub 2% Facebook engagement on our business posts now—business abuse.
But with groups, that’s all changed. You have control over your content and you can ensure your group see’s it. It’s a captive audience. You don’t have to worry about reaching your fans through their newsfeed anymore.
As group members, they’ll be actively engaged in your content—as long as it’s valuable.
Don’t think your niche has enough people for creating a group? Look at the Quilt Block Challenge Group who has 57,000 members. Small niche, huge interest.
Do FB ads work to get more FB followers?
Oh yah! Big time. They work exceptionally well. We are all about free growth-hacking for bootstrapped companies, but if you have some money to spend, running Facebook ads will increase your following exponentially.
The reason FB ads increase page followers so much is because of the ad targeting. Your ad can be shown to thousands of new people each day.
And, if you aren’t super salesly, and instead focus on adding value to their life, they will return the favor with a LIKE. And then, just like we showed you above, you can invite them into your page and then into your group.
Value based Facebook Ad Ideas:
Seasonal Ads
Run ads around times of the year when people are most engaged and nostalgic. Holidays, seasonal events, and weather are all great reasons to run a meaningful ad.
For example, let’s say you are a local restaurant and you want to attract loyal new followers. On St. Patricks day, share a post where you teach people how to make a delicious holiday drink or an Irish meal.
People will like, share, and comment their Irish happiness all week long. Here is a great example from the folks over at Fix.com. This would make for an excellent FB ad.
How-to Ads
Most companies default to making every post about marketing their products, but people are selfish and they don’t care about your company—they care about themselves. Give them something to care about.
Use how-to ads and teach them something through a video, image, text, or infographic. You can also offer them something in exchange for their support like a free PDF or short course. It’s all about giving.
Here is a good example if you are a fitness product company. This is an educational image from Dr. Joel Seedman at AHP. It would make a great Facebook how-to ad.
Increase Facebook likes through a mutual exchange
While this entire article has been all about capturing people while they are on Facebook, your website can also become a useful tool. If you are getting quality traffic to your website, you can ask for likes directly from your website.
You’ve probably seen the social buttons all over blog posts that are supposed to encourage people to share great articles. They look something like this:
And while these are good buttons to put on your site, visitors aren’t going to go out of their way to click on these buttons for you. If they are engaged in your content, they are far more likely to read another “related article” before socially sharing with your fancy buttons.
You need a bigger cookie to motivate people. To really nudge people to liking your FB page, offer an exchange of value. Create a helpful document, PDF, how-to-guide, video, video series, or short course in exchange for a Facebook like.
Wishpond’s contest builder tool is a great service to do this with.
Don’t feel like asking for likes is beggarly. It’s not, as long as you are providing a rich value in return. So make sure whatever you are offering is worth something of value. The FB likes will pour in.
Get new Facebook fans through contests
Contests are one of the best ways to get Facebook likes. And, if your audience is growing on Facebook, you probably already have the demographics nailed down.
You see, we often hang out with people who are also just like us. Our closest friends tends to be the people who share our common interests. As a marketer, this is exactly the leverage you need.
A Facebook like challenge is very simple: ask someone for a Facebook like in exchange for a chance to win something in a contest.
Remember those close friends I was talking about? Target your Facebook audience and they will invite their friends into your contest who are just like them.
A great tool you can use for this is Shortstack. They will help you run giveaways to increase your social page-likes or email following.
Here is an example of a contest aimed at giving away free cupcakes for a year WHEN you invite a friend.
Chances are if you sell cupcakes and someone in your audience shares this with their friend, that person likes cupcakes too. And, now they know who you are. Double-win.
Get more likes by just being yourself
We saved this tip for last because it’s probably more important than all the rest. If you want people to follow you, they have to like you. Authenticity always wins.
If you aren’t sincere and you are only looking to rack-up vanity metrics like page likes, the quality of your audience will stink.
Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired magazine, conservationists, photographer, and prolific author, once explained the value of 1000 true fans. I think every entrepreneur needs to hear this message. I’ve put the video here for you to watch. It’s a game-changer.
To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.
Kevin Kelly
In the end, a million Facebook fans could be worth 1% of the value of 1000 true Facebook fans. Winning the game of business is not about attracting anyone who will listen, it’s about attracting someone who cares about your business.
Sometimes finding that person is more expensive, but they will also have far more lifetime value. We’ve seen loads of Facebook pages with millions of fans, yet they fail to make any money.
On the other end, we’ve seen Facebook pages with a few thousand Facebook fans rake in piles of cash like clockwork. We like clockwork, how about you?
Related Questions:
Are Facebook page fans the same thing as Facebook followers? Yes. Facebook page fans and page followers are terms that can be used interchangeably. When people say followers they are also saying fans.
Are people automatically page followers when they like my post? No. People have to choose to like your page before they become page followers. You can learn more about the process here.
