Facebook Fanpages - How to make them grow..

Hey, we kicked off our fanpage for LadyUmbrella Ladies Tees at the start of August (the 8th of August to be exact) and have done a few things to try promote it..I'll now share some of the things we did with you, hopefully it will be of some use..

- Competitions run via the fanpage
You want people to comment on your page and become fans. Then their friends might check out your fan page as they will see that someone they know has "fanned up" or left a comment..To do this create some competition where people have to leave comments..we did this and it has been quite successful..has gained us about 350 fans or so I think..I have a blog post you can check out where I talk about what we did..

- discount for "fav t-shirt is.."
Instead of 30% for joining give them a discount for letting you know which t-shirt of yours is their favorite. Then again you'll get a comment which their friends might see except it will be the best advertising you can get "My favorite t-shirt is your XYZ design - give me my discount" - imagine if you were getting a few of these a day how many people would be checking out your page to see what its about and how many new fans you might get

- Keep interacting
Try engage your fans, again, more comments = more fans..it will also help you maintain your activity rating which I think increases your chances of your fanpage appearing in the right hand side ad section, where it says "Friend Y has become of fan of Fanpage X"..You don't want to go overboard though, try find the balance, if you notice that you lose fans when you post too much then check yourself before you wreck yourself...

- Create a poll
Get people to vote on things...You can create polls that appear on tabs on the fanpage where people can vote on whatever..make the poll interesting and relevant to you niche and then set about marketing it. On the likes of twitter "link bait" it to a degree so that people want to click on the link to see what the poll is about..the poll is housed on your fanpage so you might get more fans that way..Don't limit your tweets to polls though - tweet til the cows come home...

- Ask your friends to join
Really, invite them all...to your good friends ask them to invite their friends as well..this can have unprecedented jumps in numbers...Also, importantly, when a friend joins your page leave them a comment to say "thanks for joining the XYZ fanpage - spread the word" or something like that..now anyone who visits your friends page will see a comment saying that they have just joined a certain fanpage and us humans are curious creatures so they might just check it out...

- Fanpage Exchanges
Know someone who has a fanpage? How about you suggest their page to all of your friends and vice versa..again, you don't want to do this too often or you'll annoy the crap out of your friends but it can be a good way to get some fans..

- Facebook Ads
Facebook ads can be a good source of a steady stream of fans..you might not get dizzying numbers but done well the costs can be kept down and you'll get steady growth..also, for every person who joins you don't know how many of their friends might also join...you can just hope that some do and that the circle of fans keeps extending...I recently ran Facebook ads and had some success with it, I'll detail in a later post how that worked out for me and what I learned..

- Targets
Set targets for what you want to achieve. Be realistic, break it down into the number of fans you want to get per day and what you can do to get them...Work hard to get these fans..

- Blogs
There is no harm in having a blog, perhaps not for growing a fanpage but for keeping fans happy. Give them a place where they can find out more about the company etc..they may send a link to a friend and then you might get another fan - make it easy to join straight from the blog..also, blogs are a useful tool in the never ending SEO battle so the sooner you start the better..

- Website
On your webpage make it easy for people to join your fanpage..use the "facebook badges" that you can get which are really handy..again, tell them that if they join they can get a discount or find out about competitions or the latest product news..

After doing all that our fanpage has grown to a little about 1260 fan (hehe, and I don't have that many friends).. Not stellar by any stretch of the imagination but a nice start. A prime example of a successful fanpage is Rizzo Tees fanpage which is the type of active fanpage I want to have somday...

Hopefully some of the above will help you and feel free to ask any questions you may have...would also love to hear how any tips you have or what you do to try keep your fanpage buzzing...