How do I get more people to “Like” my Facebook page?

Posted by TJ Goulet on Mar 11, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Tech, Resident Communication, Social Media | Comments Off

This is the question I get asked more than any other by marketing professionals in the multifamily industry.  It doesn’t matter if they have 5, 50, 500 or 5,000 Likes on their Facebook page; they want more…a lot more!  This stat more than any other seems to be the measuring sticks that their bosses use to define success.  The say, “If we have lots of people liking us on Facebook, our social media program must be working.”

While I don’t agree that this is the true measure of success in social marketing, I do understand that it is a big part of being successful.  So I took some time and researched what has worked for me in the past and what is working for other professionals.

Here are the best ways to increase your Facebook “Likes” and increase the reach of your social media marketing campaigns.  I’ve broken the ideas down into three sections:  activities that cost money, activities that cost time and activities that require programming.

Activities to increase Facebook “Likes” that cost money:

1. Purchase Facebook “Likes” – That’s right, you can buy them just like you can buy anything else on the Internet.  There are companies out there that have a network of “Likers” that “Like” pages on command.  Now, there is nothing illegal or wrong with buying Facebook “Likes” and honestly, they are not that expensive.  Not these fans don’t have significant value beyond being a number to display…but sometimes that has value all on its’ own.
2. Advertise your Facebook Page – Probably a more reasonable way to grow your “Likes” is to advertise your page on Facebook.  The new Facebook Ad program is very good at getting your ad in front of quality prospects.  You can target by geography, demographic and similar interests. A key to success in using Facebook Ads is to make sure your page has something to offer the potential fans, like a contest, give away or something else of value.
3. Combine “Likes” with charitable donations – A key to making social media work is to have compelling, relevant content and to give people a reason to interact with you.  A great way of accomplishing both is to combine your charitable giving as a company with your Facebook Page “Like.”  You could offer $1 donation to local food bank, Red Cross, American Cancer Foundation or SPCA for every “Like” you get over a certain time.  You can cap it, of course.  This gives you both a compelling reason for people to “Like” your page and it also is a natural content driver.  The promotion of a charity as part of a marketing campaign is not new and it does work.

Activities to increase Facebook “Likes” that cost time:

1. Content is king – The most important thing you can do to increase your “Likes” is to make sure you Facebook Page is rich with quality and relevant content.  If you have little to offer, no matter how much you spend or beg, you are not going to get many “Likes.”
2. Join Relevant Groups & Promote Your Page – In my experience, this activity is by far the best way to grow your “Likes.”  The key is to seek out groups that have similar interests to what your company does.  Once you join the group, be sure to promote your page with quality content and by responding to others that post and engage the group.  Don’t just post to the group wall, actually respond to other members that post to the wall directly.  Ask people to “Like” your Facebook Page when you engage them…and offer to reciprocate.  This type of direct interaction will generate results consistently.
3. Encourage “Likes” in your email signature – Everywhere you can ask for someone to “Like” your Facebook Page, you should.  Your signature is a great place…how many people do you email every day that haven’t “Liked” your page?   “Please Like our Facebook Page” links should be in every newsletter emailed out, every email, and every press release.
4. Make sure your co-workers are involved – I uncovered this problem with many companies I reviewed, including my own.  Your best results are going to start at home.  Make sure that your team has “Liked” your page, and shared it on their walls.  Plus, you can ask them to use the “Suggest to Friends” button to send out your page to all their email contacts requesting “Likes.”
5. Recruit on Facebook – If you recruit new employees through Facebook, with Job Postings on your page, you will get more “Likes.”  The key is linking to the job posting on your Facebook page and making sure the “Like” button is in every posting.
6. Steal “Likes” from your competitors – This is my favorite way to capture “Likes.”  If you are like me, you probably troll your competitor’s pages, and “Like” them.  The idea here is to engage the fans of those pages who post to their wall.  Most businesses are not vigilant about answering and responding to everyone that posts to their page…and this is your opportunity.  Engage the poster, answer their question, link to material on your page that may be of use to them, and of course, ask them to “Like” your Facebook Page.  You might end up with much more than a fan…you might get a new customer!
7. Link from YouTube – If you are posting videos on YouTube, make sure you use Linkedtube.com’s tool that overlays a link to your Facebook page on your videos.  This way every view is a potential fan.
8. Use the @ symbol when posting on Facebook – Make sure that you sign all your posts and comments on any Facebook page with @pagename.  This will automatically create a link back to your page that can be easily followed by other users and will drive traffic and “Likes” to your page.

Activities to increase Facebook Page “Likes” that require programming:

1. Add a fan box to your website – This has shown to be 40% more effective at driving traffic and “Likes” to your Facebook Page.  Don’t just display the Facebook Icon or “Like” button.  Instead show the faces of people who “Liked” your Facebook page.  Since most Facebook users remain logged in while surfing, the fan box will automatically display their friends that have already “Liked” your page.   People are more likely to “Like” a page that their friends have already liked, which is why the fan box has shown to be so effective.

Hopefully some of these ideas work for you.  I know they have worked for me and others.  The main thing is to keep going.  Social is here to stay, so build those fan networks and be sure to share any great ideas you have with me…I am always looking for ways to get more “Likes” on my many Facebook Pages!

About Resident Places

Resident Places is a zero cost amenity to residential and mixed use properties where residents receive valuable money saving offers from local businesses through a co-branded coupon portal.  These neighborhood deals are made available without any sales activity by leasing staffs or IT teams.  Every deal printed through the co-branded portal will include the name of the property and is shareable via social media networks like Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter, which expands the reach and audience of the community’s brand to their residents, prospects and area businesses.  For business owners, our unique offering gives access into a typically difficult advertising market – multifamily communities, with a low cost, high tech solution.

About the Author: TJ Goulet (58 Posts)

TJ Goulet has been a leader in sales and marketing for almost 20 years. His background includes both entrepreneurial endeavors and nationally recognized achievement with a Fortune 500 Company. He entered the local search and coupon industry in 2005, when he launched his first directory and coupon portal. TJ's expertise is in utilizing current technologies and marketing platforms to increase sales productivity across a broad range of products and services.

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Social Demographics: Who’s Using Today’s Biggest Networks [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted by TJ Goulet on Mar 9, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Tech, Resident Communication, Social Media | Comments Off

More than 66% of adults are connected to one or more social media platforms, but who exactly are these people?

The infographic below, created by Online MBA, breaks down the demographics, including education level, income, age and gender of social media users, along with other miscellaneous facts.

Some sites’ users are more demographically alike than others. One thing is the same for most social sites — college students, or those who have completed some college, represent the majority on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg and Reddit. Among Facebook users, 57% have completed some college, and 24% have earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Although, people 45 and older make up 46% of Facebook users.

Social media sites are also seeing a gender split — women use social media more than men. More women are on Facebook and Twitter. About 57% of Facebook and 59% of Twitter users are women.

Women gravitate toward Pinterest and young, techie men hang out on Google+. Pinterest has the heaviest gender imbalance — 82% of users are women, who pin crafts, gift ideas, hobbies, interior design and fashion. On the other spectrum, Google+ is dominated by men (71%) and early adopters, engineers and developers. About 50% of Google+ users are 24 or younger.

LinkedIn reports an even ratio of men and women — 49% over age 45 — who use the site to connect with other business professionals.

Most people use social media to stay in touch with friends and family, and more are doing so while on the go. About 200 million Facebook users check their Timelines from their mobile devices every day.

Check out the infographic below to see all the statistics.

Infographic courtesy of Online MBA.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RapidEye.

Social Demographics: Who’s Using Today’s Biggest Networks [INFOGRAPHIC].

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Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand

Posted by TJ Goulet on Mar 5, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Marketing, Resident Communication, Social Media | Comments Off

Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand.

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Building a Content Marketing Strategy

Posted by TJ Goulet on Feb 28, 2012 in Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Multifamily, Multifamily Marketing, Resident Communication, Social Media | Comments Off

As mentioned in my previous article about the movement towards content marketing, traditional marketing is being over-taken by content driven strategies that focus on distribution through social media.  Advertising is not dead!  On the contrary, advertising is stronger than ever, if you merge the old with the new.  By combining traditional marketing, branding and advertising with content driven social programs, you are going to have exponential success through the combined efforts of you and your target audience.

Your content marketing strategy should be designed to expand on your traditional programs and develop relationships that will bring long term residual returns for all your advertising expenditures.

Here are some key steps to take when implementing your content marketing strategy.

Start with a set of goals – I always find the best way to implement any sales or marketing strategy is to first outline specific and measurable goals.  Don’t just say, “Increase sales.”  Your goals have to be well defined and measurable.  An example of a productive goal is, “Increase sales by 15% within 6 months.”  This goal is measurable and allows you to create accountability and benchmarks.  Other goals to consider are increase mentions on twitter by 50% or secure 10,000 Facebook fans or add 5,000 subscribers to our monthly newsletter.

Who is your target? – Once you have a goal, you must identify who your target audience is and how best to speak to them.  You aren’t going to grow your newsletter subscription rate if your target audience is 35-55 year old women by posting content about advances in fuel injection systems.  You have to know who you are speaking too and what interests them.  I try to place myself in the shoes of my customers or prospects and ask myself, what would interest me and keep my attention.

What are you trying to say? – Content marketing is no different than traditional marketing in that you have to have a message to deliver.  What is it that you want to convey to your audience, what differentiates your brand or product, how are you better than your competition and how do you translate these attributes to a language that will be received by your target audience?

Decide on a strategy – Content marketing typically is broken into three strategies:  long-form, short-form and social conversations.  Long-form includes blog posts, articles and press releases. Short-form is typically Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn updates and graphics. Social conversations might include participating in and driving conversations by link sharing, video and blog commenting and forum discussions.  You may decide to only use one or all three.  All can be effective on their own and when used together.

Gotta have a plan – First you plan the work, then you work the plan.  Your plan should include a calendar that works backwards from your goal date, include benchmarks along the way and include specific strategies, tactics, calls to action and responsibilities.  This process can be a major project, but you will be glad you invested the time at the beginning, as it makes execution so much easier.

Build your content – You will be building content throughout the entirety of your project, but by creating about 20% of your content pre-launch, it allows you to both refine your message before it is seen and give you a cushion if you should fall behind during your campaign.  Your content should be unique and different and speak to your audience incorporating your key message.

Grow a relationship – Remember you are not selling or closing, you are building the awareness of your company and product or service through engagement with your prospects and customers on terms that they prefer and desire.  If you do this right, they will buy from you because they trust you and know you.

Remember, content marketing isn’t only about what you have to say.  At least 70% of what you share should be curated (not your own) and specific to the needs and wants of your target audience.  Remember you are building a relationship…it is all about them!

Share your message – It is time to get your words out there.  Build a machine that includes relevant key words to your product or service and attach them to your message.  Make sure you are using these key words in your tags and imbedding them into your blogs posts.  SEO can play a huge part in getting your message found and increasing subscribers and followers.  Don’t forget about Twitter, Facebook and social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.  Don’t wait for your customers to spread the word, everyone on your marketing team needs to like, plus, retweet and repost your content.

Review and refine – Don’t wait until the end of your campaign to see if it worked.  You need to measure everything and watch the benchmarks you have established.  You should also be able to see what is working the best and what didn’t.  Do more of what works and refine what didn’t.  If you can’t get it to work, try something else.  I have been shocked more than once at what blew up and went viral and what was completely ignored.  Learn from your successes and failures along the way and refine your campaign to ensure you hit your goals and exceed them.

Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, you can’t go from 1 to 1 million followers with getting to 2 and every success is preceded by a thousand failures.

About Resident Places

Resident Places is a zero cost amenity to residential and mixed use properties where residents receive valuable money saving offers from local businesses through a co-branded coupon portal.  These neighborhood deals are made available without any sales activity by leasing staffs or IT teams.  Every deal printed through the co-branded portal will include the name of the property and is shareable via social media networks like Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter, which expands the reach and audience of the community’s brand to their residents, prospects and area businesses.  For business owners, our unique offering gives access into a typically difficult advertising market – multifamily communities, with a low cost, high tech solution.

About the Author: TJ Goulet (58 Posts)

TJ Goulet has been a leader in sales and marketing for almost 20 years. His background includes both entrepreneurial endeavors and nationally recognized achievement with a Fortune 500 Company. He entered the local search and coupon industry in 2005, when he launched his first directory and coupon portal. TJ's expertise is in utilizing current technologies and marketing platforms to increase sales productivity across a broad range of products and services.

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How to Use White Papers in your Content Marketing Strategy

Posted by TJ Goulet on Feb 27, 2012 in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media | Comments Off

How To Use White Papers In Your Content Marketing Strategy

This is a guest post by Mitt Ray fromSocial Marketing Writing.

Social media and blogs are usually the basic requirements of every content marketing strategy. Having a good blog with a lot of good content and being able to share them on social media platforms with lots of followers and fans can be a really good start. But the marketing material you should never forget to use in your content marketing strategy; is a white paper.

White papers differ from blogs and other form of content as they have a tiny bit of direct marketing messages in them. Most of the white paper is generally content, but a small fraction of a white paper consists of direct marketing material. A blog can be very powerful and educative, but it would normally take you some time before you start generating leads (on average it takes about 6 months for a blog to generate leads) from it.

This is why white papers are used in content marketing to shorten the gestation period of lead generation. White papers can speedup lead generation through their educative and persuasive nature and cut short the vast amounts of time blogs take.

How can Businesses Use White Papers in their content marketing strategy

1. To Generate leads

As mentioned above it could take you really long to generate leads only through your blog. A white paper on the other hand can help you generate leads very quickly. A white paper through its educative nature followed by its persuasive nature can educate your readers, earn their trust and convince them to buy your product or use your service. This way you can have direct marketing messages in your white papers and avoid using them on your blog.

2. Increase Newsletters Sign Ups

Newsletters are one of the most important tools every content marketing strategy should possess. When you start a business blog it’s important not to clutter it up with ads that distract your clients. You need to avoid any sort of direct marketing messages and keep your blog advert free. This is one of the main reasons why you need newsletters. You can send your direct messages through newsletters.

Newsletters also help you keep in touch with your readers. Through newsletter you can send out your latest updates which could be latest posts, news, offers, etc. However, it can be hard to get people sign up to your newsletters, but sign ups can be increased by using white papers.

You can let your readers know that they can receive a copy of your educative white paper only after they sign up to your newsletter. This should increase your newsletter sign ups. You can now send out your newsletters to your readers, build relationships, increase blog traffic and generate leads.  An example of a company that uses white papers for getting many newsletter sign ups is Hubspot. If you visit their Marketing Resources page you will find many white papers on various subjects.

3. Increase Facebook Likes

A facebook page should always be part of your content marketing strategy. A facebook page with many “likes” can help you generate both quality traffic and new leads. Getting those “likes” can seem like a huge task. But you can easily increase the number of “Likes” your facebook page has with a white paper. The first thing you will need to do is add a fan gate to your fan page. A fan gate is when you have a second landing page for your facebook page. Only fans who like your page will be directed to this page.

On your first landing page you could have a message which asks your readers to like your page. You also need to let them know that they can get access to your white paper only after they like your page. After they like your page they will be directed to your second (fan only) landing page. This is where you place the link to your white paper or the sign up for your white paper. This technique will not only help you get many facebook “Likes,” but will also help you get many readers for your newsletter.

4. Rejuvenate Old Blog Posts

In your white papers you can insert links to your old blog posts. These blog posts can help explain complicated terms or provide more information about a particular topic. These links in the white paper will help increase the traffic your old posts receive.

Tips on creating successful white papers

If you want to take advantage of the above strategies, you need to make sure you create well researched and well written white papers.
The tips below will help you create powerful white papers.

1. Find out your audience’s problems

A white paper provides solutions to problems. You need to make sure you provide solutions to the problems faced by your readers. First, find out what your audience’s biggest problem is and then give the solution to this problem. If you can help them solve their problems in the white papers and display your expertise, they will definitely contact you for more help and will eventually hire your services or buy your product, as they will now feel that you understand them.

2. Give away Secrets

Many people make the mistake of holding back and not giving away their secrets. They think that giving away their secrets might be problematic, as they are scared that their competitors might steal them. But I have found that giving away secrets is better than giving away very little information in your white paper. Giving away a few secrets in your white paper will make it unique.

When you hold back on your secrets and write a white paper, your white paper will be similar to almost every other white paper on your subject. When you give a few secrets no one else knows, it will make your white paper unique and help it stand out from the crowd.

I am not asking you to give away all your secrets. Just give away a few which would not drastically affect your business when revealed.

3. Keep Your White papers Short

Always keep your white papers to a minimum of 3 pages and a maximum of 14 pages. If your white paper gets too long you could divide it into a series of white papers and make it easy for your readers to choose a specific white paper from a series and read it individually. A short white paper which is about 14 pages long will be easier to read than a long 20 to 50 page white paper and white papers are normally read by decision makers of a company who have very little time on their hands. They will always prefer reading a short white paper to a long white paper.

The few tips above will help you create powerful white papers which can be used effectively in your content marketing strategy.

How do you use white papers in your content marketing strategy? Are there any other white paper writing tips you would like to share with us?

Mitt Ray is the Director of imittcopy where he provides white paper writing and marketing services. He is an expert white paper writer. He blogs about white papers on “The White Paper Blog.” He is the author of the book White Paper Marketing. He is also the CEO of Social Marketing Writing.

Image Credit: J Klein

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