This month’s blog covers some of the common things people do to increase their Facebook followers that I actually advise against

Let’s start with something I really dislike – the ability to ‘invite all’.

Using me as an example, I have friends on Facebook all over the country and a handful who live abroad. My friends range from early teens to people who are in their 80s. Some are active and love socialising, some less so. Some love animals, some have no pets and want to keep it that way. Some have children, others don’t. Some are male, some are female.

Given that huge mix of demographics, what are the chances that any one Facebook page would possibly resonate with them all?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been invited to like:

  • A butcher’s shop (I’m veggie)

  • A dog food supplier (I don’t have a dog)

  • A café which is a 90-minute drive from my house (too far to go for a cuppa)

  • A plant hire company (diggers, rollers, dumpers…something I’ve never needed. Ever)

…and lots of other totally unrelated businesses.

Instead…

I know people mean well and are trying to help a page grow, and asking people to ‘invite all’ might sound like a quick fix, but in my experience it really isn’t likely to work, I’m afraid. Try asking them to be more targeted.

I see so many ‘give us a like, tag a friend and share this post’ competitions, and I know people seem to be getting away with running them, but they’re actually against the rules of Facebook. If you’re caught, you could be banned from the platform so your content and followers will be lost. Sorry to be a bore, but I think it’s important that I warn you of the risks.

Facebook’s policy says (at the time of writing this blog – the wording changes occasionally, but the message has always been the same)

‘Your promotion must not require or incentivise participants to share, repost, tag others or in any other way publicise your promotion.’

That means, you shouldn’t make sharing or tagging a condition of entry for your competition.

Any promotions need to comply with certain legal and regulatory requirements, such as providing official rules, disclosing terms and eligibility requirements, and registering your competition where necessary with relevant authorities.

You must also state that Meta is not associated with the competition through sponsorship, endorsement or administration.

Instead…

With all the complexities in mind, you might want to steer away from Facebook competitions or at least do very thorough homework. Any engagement you get will likely be short-term anyway and not from followers who are genuinely interested in your page – they, understandably, just want to win something.

It might be time to make a few tweaks to your social media strategy instead:

  • If you want more followers, think about what touchpoints you’ve got with people who already engage with you and where you could put links and QR codes

  • If you want to followers to tag their friends, rather than saying ‘tag a friend who…’ which is spammy and a bit cringe, say ‘who would you…’

  • If you want comments, try asking a question or, better still, keep your content engaging so people will take action:

·       Emotional or relatable stories will often inspire people

·       Tips or advice will educate or inform them

·       Entertaining posts will also get a reaction, if appropriate

This seems very basic advice, but it’s something I see people regularly misunderstand, and no wonder - it can be confusing if you’re unfamiliar with Facebook and a little scared like I was when I first started out many, many years ago.

First off, you need a personal profile to be able to set up a page. I have one which is private so only my ‘friends’ (people I’m connected with that I actually know) can see my content. I post on there what I’ve been up to, and I don’t use it for work – I want to keep things separate.

Once you’ve set up your profile, you can create a page for your business or organisation. This needs to be a page, not another profile, because:

  • Pages are for professional use and look far more credible from the off. A profile is for personal use and shouldn’t be used to represent anything other than an individual. Facebook’s rules state this

  • A page’s like/follow numbers aren’t limited, whereas a profile can only have up to 5,000 friends (at the time of writing – it may change, but will likely remain limited)

  • You can run ads from a page

  • Pages have a panel on the side where you can put information such as your bio, contact details and a link to your website to make it easier for people to get those details immediately

  • Pages have advanced insights and scheduling tools

  • You can create business events on pages and invite your followers to them

  • People can leave recommendations on your page if you wish them to, so potential customers, clients or service users can see how fab you are

  • You can create a group as page where you could, say, offer support to people and allow them to share experiences or chat to others in your line of work

Professional profiles…the slight curveball!

There’s now such a thing as a professional profile, which is basically a regular profile with ‘professional mode’ turned on. These are more for influencers whose business is themselves, so the connection is more personal.

These are public and also give a few insights, plus a few other things pages can do, but generally speaking businesses and charities are better off with pages because you can do so much more with them. Also, the pages themselves need to be named after your business or organisation, not you as a person.

To sum up

I know I sound like a broken record, but I always say a small number of engaged followers is much better than a huge number who never interact with your content and have no interest in your product, service, or whatever it is you’re talking about.

That said, you do of course need some followers, and ideally you want to be continually growing those.

If your budget is zero, the best way to do that for free is to encourage people who are already connected with you in some way to follow you, as described above, then keep the content engaging and meaningful to get reactions, comments and shares.

If your budget is small, Facebook ads can be an inexpensive way of reaching people with similar interests, behaviours and locations as your current followers. This does require a bit of an investment, but as the saying goes, ‘time is money’, and a small amount of budget on one correctly placed ad could see more benefit than you spending time and effort creating several posts.