In today’s episode, I’m going to help you get more followers on Facebook.
If this is something that you’re needing help with – if you need a little bit of a boost to your strategy – then this is the episode for you.
Let’s dive in!
If you’ve listened to me for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me say that the number of followers that you have on Facebook isn’t necessarily an important driver or metric to be focused on – especially not in the early stages of business.
With that being said, your audience size does matter.
It’s important for us to know that you’ve got strategies in place to start growing that audience so that you’re reaching more people, and then also ensuring that you’re nurturing them, generating leads and making sales.
Whilst for most people, their number one priority right now is NOT increasing their audience or increasing their reach, it is something that we want to look after and make sure we’ve got some strategies in place for it.
It’s generally the type of thing that’s going to take the most time to snowball and start to get some momentum.
There are some really simple strategies that you can put in place to start looking after future-you and the future growth of your audience by putting them in place today.
Here are my five tips on growing your audience and getting more followers on Facebook:
1. Look after the followers you already have
If the followers you already have are not getting good quality content, are rarely hearing from you, and when they do comment, you never actually engage in a conversation with them, then how on earth you’re going to recruit more people to that audience?
A lot of people are focused on chasing new audience members, and they’re not looking after the audience that they already have.
First and foremost, the number one step to getting more followers is to look after the ones that you have.
It’s exactly the same with list growth.
If you’re terrible at looking after your existing list, then how on earth are you going to convince more people to sign up?
It’s the same with money. If you’re terrible at managing the money that you do have, then how on earth are you going to attract more money into your sphere?
You want to look after the followers you already have on Facebook. If they’re not getting quality consistent engaging content from you, if they’re not getting engagement and presence from you, then chances are you’re going to really struggle to get more followers there as well.
Look after your existing audience!!
2. Start recruiting audiences from other spaces
If you want more followers on your Facebook page, then make sure you:
- Tell people about how great your Facebook page is over on your Instagram
- Promote your page and why people should come and follow it into other Facebook groups and communities that you’re in
- Have lead conversations with people and ask them if they’re following you on Facebook
- Are emailing your list consistently and reminding them to come over to your Facebook page
It doesn’t always have to be point-blank telling them to go to your page. You can tell them about specific content there.
In my ordinary newsletter, I will regularly point people back to content that I have on my Facebook page. This is because:
1. If they don’t like or follow my Facebook page yet, then it’s going to encourage them to do so.
2. Even if they already are following me on Facebook, it’s really engaging them with my Facebook content. If they go and watch that, they’re more likely to see more and more content from my page in their feed as well. It’s helping my reach overall.
Again, when you’re talking to your clients, do you mention a Facebook Live that you did on your page about that specific topic? Are you asking your clients if they’re following your page where you post lots of great tips that will help them between sessions?
Make sure that in the other spaces that you are in, that you’re recruiting Facebook followers from there.
3. Have very shareable content
It’s all well and good to create content that’s going to get people to answer a question (that’s a really juicy style of content!). But do you also have content that people would be so enamoured with that they want to share it onto their own profile or page?
Have a think about what would be epically shareable for your specific niche. (And yes – it does need to be niched and it needs to be very specific. That’s another tip that’s coming up shortly!)
Just think about what some shareable things are that people didn’t know that they’ll then want to share with their audience as well.
If your business is business-to-business or entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur (as mine is), then putting out information that people want to share with their audiences is a really juicy one.
If you are business-to-consumer (so you’re in the health and wellbeing/relationship/life coaching/yoga space) then you want to make sure that that’s shareable with their friends.
Have a think about who your audience is most likely to share with, and how can you create content that they are likely to share?
Be really mindful.
These days when it comes to getting great reach and shareability on Facebook, the rule of thumb is to post less often, but post in a more niched and mindful way.
If you can do that, you’re going to really maximise the odds that your content is going to be seen by your audience, shared by your audience, and therefore attracting new audiences as well.
4. Niche
Be specific!!
It’s all well and good for you to be sharing beautiful motivational quotes, but if they’re already seeing motivational quotes like that from others, and the world of social media is proliferated with these lovely but ultimately meaningless motivational quotes, then they’re not necessarily specific to your peeps.
The more specific and tangible you can make your content, and the more you can make it specifically for your niche, then the more that people are going to share it with other people who fit that niche…
The more that it’s going to get that organic reach and growth.
A great example of this is to think about someone in the healing space.
If you have a really good tip for healing a calf strain and you just share it in that context, then people are going to tag someone that they know has a calf strain and you’ll get that reach. But if you share that tip for healing a calf strain for football players, then people won’t just tag the people that they know with a calf strain, they’ll tag the football players that they know.
This is where being very specific in your messaging and speaking to a very specific niche can create extra shareability, tag-ability and organic reach growth for your audience.
I used a very simple example there.
I don’t necessarily mean that you have to say exactly who it’s for, but when you are clear on the direct, tangible application of this tip, it does lend itself more to being shared, commented on and people being tagged in it.
If I share a generic ‘Get more followers on Facebook’ podcast, it will work for my existing audience who want to get more followers on Facebook. They’re most likely to consume this content.
If I had followers who had followers who wanted to get more followers on Facebook (this is getting very inception!), then yes, they might share it. BUT if it’s much more specific to people who don’t necessarily want to be spending on ads just yet, who work in the heart-centred service-based business space and don’t want to use spammy fisching-style strategies to get followers on Facebook, then it’s way more likely to be shared.
You might notice that none of the strategies I’ve given you is to:
- Set up a Facebook profile
- Befriend strangers on the internet
- Pretend to have a meaningful conversation with them
- Swoop in and tell them to follow your Facebook page
I DON’T recommend that strategy because it’s not grounded in consent, it’s particularly spammy, and it doesn’t necessarily work anyway.
It’s a LOT of work for a very minimal return for your time.
If you are someone who values that, you’re going to be more likely to share that with your audience. Not because I said you’re someone who values that, but because when you hear this podcast episode, you are taken aback by the fact that none of the strategies are particularly gross or spammy or fear-driven or invasive.
It’s the type of strategy that’s going to work for you, you’re going to be resonating with that, and you’ll want to share that with your audience as well.
That’s why when I say ‘niche’, I don’t necessarily mean you should tell people who your niche is (although if it is the footballers’ thing then of course tell them who they are). But it’s about the way that your message resonates with a certain type of person.
The first step in making your content more niche-specific is to get specific about who your niche is and make those important niching decisions.
If you want to learn more about niching and applying that niche to messaging, make sure that you’ve watched my Nail Your Niche training. Get instant access to it for free at tashcorbin.com/niche.
Tip number four is to be niched in the content that you share on your social media, especially on your Facebook page.
5. Pay for ads
You might find this surprising because most of the Facebook strategy that I teach is the free strategy – the organic strategy to get followers on Facebook – but I’ll be 100% honest with you, for every single person that I work with on Facebook, my goal is not for you to never spend money on Facebook ads. My goal is for you to get your organic strategies working efficiently and effectively enough that they make you a good amount of money, and then you’ve got the budget to invest in Facebook ads and it just grows exponentially from there.
I highly recommend ads once you’ve got your organic strategies working.
Woman on computer getting more followers on Facebook in business start-up
I would rather you invest a few months in getting your organic strategies working and making some good sales from that, and then reinvest some of the money that you make into ads so that you don’t have to be burning yourself out and investing too much time in those organic strategies.
Initially, when you first start a business and you first start growing your audience on Facebook, I would expect you to be investing 3-10 hours a week in those organic strategies.
Depending on how much time you’ve got, I would say about 3 hours a week is reasonable – especially if it’s a side-hustle or you’re a stay at home mum or you’ve got other responsibilities. Then I would say if you’re jumping straight into business full time and you haven’t got paying clients yet, 10 hours a week would absolutely be a decent investment of time (I wouldn’t go more than that) to use some of these organic strategies for social media.
I would absolutely expect after a few months that you could get that down to 2-3 hours a week maximum on social media.
The rest of your growth comes from paid ads.
Especially if, when you do those organic strategies, you are attracting and converting your ideal clients which is exactly what your social media strategy should be doing, and they should be doing it very quickly, then you’re going to have the budget to be investing in ads.
One little caveat I will say around investing in ads is that you’re not investing in ads to just get followers. You invest in ads in a strategic way for engagement and conversion.
That is something that I do teach in my paid programs once you’ve got the organic strategies working.
The simple ad strategies that I use and that I recommend, don’t work if you haven’t done the organic stuff first and foremost, because your cost per lead and your cost per result will be far too high.
It’s unsustainable.
If you want a really easy, really low-cost ad strategy, the best thing you can do is get organic strategies working in very minimal time as quickly as possible.
With all of that being said, if you would like to learn my $0 Facebook Marketing Strategy and how I recommend you get that working quickly so you can move onto ads and leveraged ways of growing your audience, then my $0 Facebook Marketing Training is the perfect thing for you to do.
To get that free training, go to tashcorbin.com/zero.
If you have any questions about this episode, make sure you come along to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you’ve been reading episode number 280 and we can continue the conversation there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
