No doubt you have already set up a Facebook account for your business and have a number of facebook fans who have joined your fanpage.
Your goal now, is to build a relationship with them and interact with them. You want to let your facebook fans know that you not only value them but that they are special. By doing so, you will encourage them to continue to read and interact with your posts. You need to consistently give your fans a reason to care about what you have to say.
Here are six ways to make your facebook fans feel special and encourage them to stay loyal to your brand:
Facebook Fans of The Month
This is a great way you can make your facebook fans feel very special. There are so many variations of this theme. For example it could be a fan of the month or a birthday of the month. Or if your company is specific like a pet store for instance, it could be cat, dog or pet of the month. You get the idea, but whatever theme you use, your fans will love it.
To make it fair, you could make a random drawing where you pick a name out of a hat. Some people even video it and upload the video to YouTube and then post the link on their Facebook page.
Or it could be a reward for a fan who you think has made the most valuable contribution to your page. Or you could come up with a short list and encourage other facebook fans to vote and basing it on how many likes a particular nominee has received.
This type of promotion is very simple but it works well by highlighting individual fans on your page and putting them in the spotlight.
Here are some examples from companies who do this well:
The beauty with this kind of promotion is that you don’t have to give any prizes out other than the recognition they get from being featured as a Fan Of The Month.
It is a good way to interact with your customers and fans. It shows that you appreciate and value them. It also encourages them to stay loyal to you and your company as well as interact on your Facebook page.
Offer Facebook Only Coupons/Discounts
Another way of making your fans feel special is to offer then exclusive offers or discounts that are only available to them. If you give your fans a reason to be part of your page and offer then discounts and coupons on the products or services that your company offers, they will not only continue to do business with you but will also spread the word with their Facebook actions and comments.
Here is a great example:
Launch on Facebook First
If you have a brand new product or service, why not make it available to your Facebook fans first?
This is a good method for a couple of reasons:
1) It makes your facebook fans feel like they are getting something before it becomes available to the rest of the world.
2) You will be able to use your Fans as a type of beta test and gauge their feedback and acquire testimonials for your product or service before you roll it out on a larger scale.
Ask The Expert Of The Day
This can be excellent way to drive traffic to your site and to provide valuable information for your fans.
For another example of a good ‘Ask The Expert’ facebook day, take a look at:
http://www.fitpregnancy.com/motherhood/breastfeeding/beating-breastfeeding-booby-traps
This is how it would work:
Choose a day, (let’s say Tuesday for this example), where you bring in an expert in your field.
So, if you own a pet store, you could bring in a person who is an expert on dog training on to your Facebook page for an hour every Tuesday to answer any questions that your fans might want to ask.
You could pay this person for their time or you could become an affiliate of theirs and split the profits of any sales that are made as a result of the question and answer session.
This is a win-win situation for everybody involved. Your fans will be happy because they have had their questions answered. Your expert is happy because they get the opportunity to sell more products and you are happy because you are keeping your facebook fans happy and have made a bit extra money from the sales.
For this to work effectively of course you will need to have a decent amount of active fans or you will not get enough participation.
All About the Fans day
This is a similar theme to the fan of the month in as much as it is yet another way to make your fans feel very special and appreciated.
A great way to do this is to allow your fans to promote themselves on your page.
So if your fans have a website or a blog, let them post a link.
Create a special day each week or month where your fans can post anything they like about themselves. It can be their site, a picture of the their kids, pet, car or whatever they want to post.
Obviously, you will be around to moderate the posts and make sure that they don’t violate any rules or directly compete with what you are offering, but it is a great way to encourage interaction.
Set Up A Contest
You can set this up fairly easily yourself, but if you want to make it look even more professional and easier to manage, there are some specific applications that have been designed to make the process more manageable.
www.strutta.com and www.wildfireapp.com are among the most popular.
Contests can be something as simple as ‘best photo’ or cutest kitten, where fans post their photos on your wall.
Or you could make it a bit more in-depth and use 3rd party applications, which would include entry forms, banners and contest statistics.
Whatever promotion you set up, make sure that you all have fun with it and you interact with your facebook fans and make them feel special.
Not only will they continue to visit your fanpage, but also they will be loyal to you and spread the word about your company.
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