10 Ways To Get More Fans On Your Facebook Fanpage

So those of you that have been reading this blog for a while now should have a clear understanding that when it comes to generating new leads for your personal training business, I sometimes have a pretty simplistic way of looking at things:

Provide a training service that gets results for your target market and then make sure that as many people as possible know about it.

Now that doesn’t sound too hard, does it?

Traditionally, letting people know about your business (eg: getting referrals) used to be a laborious task of the business owner with the assistance of some high-networking clients and the odd cleverly executed referral incentive program. But with the help of the world-wide-web and our friends at Facebook; the game has changed.

For the un-initiated, the social networking site Facebook introduced “Fan Pages” for businesses as they allowed for an unlimited number of fans to join (personal profiles max out at 5000). These pages have been refined over time to now include an amazing range of networking features and opportunities for you to show others the real day-to-day activities of your PT business and to also provide value for your fans (preferably also your target market).

So if you don’t have a Facebook Fan Page, I would definitely suggest that you click here and set up your business fan page as soon as possible. Once you have done that, take some time and get to know the features of the page, post up some quality content, fitness tips, recipes, client of the week, links to articles and whatever else you think will provide value for your target market.

When you have your page looking really tight (photo and video also have a great effect), then you can start to build up your fan base. Why do I need fans? Well, the bigger the fan base the greater the exposure of your business. This is the beautiful thing about social networking sites – the bigger your network, the more people there are out there talking about your great service. So let’s find out how we can get more fans to spread your word:

Great Idea #1: Invite your Facebook friends: Obviously, this is step one and I would not be too picky about who I invite because the world works in strange ways. Your friend in London might have a friend in Sydney in their network – so leave people out at your own peril.

Great Idea #2: Ask a few of your close friends to invite their FB friends to your page: Now normally your family of close friends will be prepared to help you out with a little bit of networking, so a phone call and an explanation of the goals of your fan page should get you invited out to another couple of networks.

Great Idea #3: Invite all current clients in your business: Let your clients know that you have put this page together as an information hub for them with tips, competitions, events, client of the week and whatever else you want to include. Encourage them to participate in this aspect of your business (but always providing great value).

Great Idea #4: Provide exceptional content and do it with consistency: Your fan page is not something to do half-assed. It is an all or nothing proposition. So make a plan about how you are going to provide your fans with great content (while still demonstrating the benefits of your business) and then decide on how often you are going to be active on your page. Once a day, once a week – whatever you can do but just be consistent.

Great Idea #5: Add a “become a fan” link to your email signature: Yeah, this one seems so simple that it might not be effective. But think about how many emails you send out per week and then think about how many of those are to prospects who would be interested in checking out your page? Providing a link is just giving them a door to walk through…

Great Idea #6: Tag names when you post on your wall: If you are making a wall post and you are using the name of one of your FB friends, type the @sign before there name (eg: @dave) and a drop down box should appear with all your friends starting with D. Choose “Dave” from the drop down box and this will make his name a live link and also post the same comment on his wall (so all his network can also see it). Works really well for client of the week posts or any form of client recognition (most people love some public praise).

Great Idea #7: Tag names when you post photos: Posting photos on your fan-page is a great way for people to get a good feel of what happens in your business. For photo tagging, group training works best (most numbers) but if you run a 1 on 1 PT business simply hold an event with all your clients eg: free outdoor group training once a month and take some photos. Then tag everybody in the photos and those photos will then appear on their walls. This allows you to spread a visual representation of your business around Facebook and encouraging more people to join your tribe.

Great Idea #8: Include a link above the fold on your website: If you have a website, make sure that you include a Facebook link to your fan-page in clear view, above the fold. “Above the fold” refers to the top part of your website that you can see when it first loads up before you start to scroll down. Making it clear and in plain view is important for a high click through rate.

Great Idea #9: Advertise with a banner: Up until now, all the tips have been little ninja tricks that you can chip away at that will all contribute to you building your fan base. These last two tips are more direct and more effective. Facebook have an exceptionally targeted pay-per-click advertising program (giving you one of those little ads that you see down the right hand border of your FB pages) and with more and more people using FB every day it is becoming a highly attractive option and very affordable.

On your fan page, click on the link that says “promote my page with an ad” and you will be away. There are a number of different aspects of these ads that you can change (headlines, copy, targeted locations, cost of each click, daily budgets ect). So if you want to know in detail how to set-up your face book ad, shoot me an email at rick@ptbusinessinabox.com.au and I will give you the run down on the best way to structure your ads.

Great Idea #10: Run a referral contest for your current clients: My final suggestion to build your fan base is to run a measured referral contest with your clients. Choose a prize of significant value (a month of personal training, a weekend away for two etc) and to let your clients know to go in the draw to win the prize, they simply have to introduce 4 fans to your Facebook fan-page. Also have an additional prize for the person who can introduce the most people so you are cover both bases. Make sure at the end of the set time period, you announce (on your Fan Page) the winner of the competition and also welcome all of your new fans.

So as I mentioned in my last posts, creating an amazing client experience and building your tribe is the foundation of your business. Your Facebook fan-page then becomes your trophy room, showing others how well you do things, how much you help other people reach their goals and how passionate you are about doing it.

It is social proof in its purest form. Other people talking about your business on your page while other people listen (read) in the background. No sales, no bullshit – just a real life example of what your business is all about.

So to wrap, I have three things to say about Facebook Fan Pages:

1. Write with thought because everything you say is an expression of you and your business. People make judgments’ very quickly and with Google now indexing FB pages (to appear in their search engine), your words will now be immortalized on the web. Think about how you want your business to be perceived.
2. Take some time and do it properly. Interact with your fans, posts up regularly, have consistency and you will be rewarded with a growing fan base.
3. Facebook has now officially overtaken Google as the number one most visited site in the world. If you haven’t got a presence here then you may be left standing at the station as the train rolls by.

Ok, back to important part…..

Once you have a decent amount of fans, then start to do an occasional “fan only” promotion for your business. The amount of promotion (in my opinion) you do should be limited to once every 6 – 8 weeks (unless it is an event etc). Losing the trust of your fans by over-promoting your service would be a shame.

This is your tribe – respect them and they will respect you.

Would love to hear you thoughts on this one, so leave a comment and let me know what you think of Facebook (for your business, not your love-life).

Cheers

Rick :-)

P.S: To keep updated with more Facebook fan page info, make sure you become a fan of my page as I will be posting up lots more articles and tips on ways that you can improve your online presence using FB.

P.P.S: As a great example of what a Facebook Fan Page can do for your business, check out Domestic Blitz Personal Training. It is run by Prue Liebig; has great branding, brand content, great fan interaction and she actually gets clients enquiring about her service on her wall (that’s smokin’). All this in the first two weeks of starting her Fan Page – a great example of using Facebook to raise awarness in your local community. Well done Prue….

Tagged as: Beautiful Thing, Business Owner, Fan Base, Fan Page, Fan Pages, Fitness Tips, Laborious Task, Networking Clients, Networking Features, New Leads, Personal Profiles, Personal Training, Quality Content, Recipes, Referral Incentive Program, Referrals, Social Networking Site, Social Networking Sites, Target Market, World Wide Web