How To Keep Your Facebook “Likers” Happy
#7: They zoom in and out, and in and out, and in and out…
Summary: "How To Keep Your Facebook “Likers” Happy"
As a photographer, learn how to use social media and good marketing practices to keep your Facebook fans happy.
Personally, I have a hard time fully adopting the word “Likers”, preferring instead the original and more pedestrian term “Fans”. Facebook fans, that is.
Photographers are working hard to capture as many fans as they can, perhaps feeling that having more fans (no matter who or where they are) must be a good thing. The same thing plays out on Twitter, too, where the volume of followers is [mistakenly] perceived as more important than the quality.
Anyway, I digress already, the topic of acquiring fans can be the subject of a whole other post…
The question of the moment is “How do we keep the fans we have? Especially the ones we actually want… How do we keep them happy so they won’t leave?”
Engage
First, we must provide a page that engages our fans and makes them want to come back on a fairly frequent basis. This is no easy task. For example, think of a page of someone famous that you’re a fan of. How often do you personally visit their fan page without prompting? That person is FAMOUS, yet they have a hard time getting their fans to repeatedly visit their page.
Some ideas I’ve seen that might help include:
- Running a contest (be careful, though, Facebook has rules about such things)
- Regular posting of new content (photos, videos etc.)
- Make sure your blog feed is connected through the notes import feature
- Have “fans-only” special offers
- Post interesting questions and run an occasional poll
- Post “featurettes” about specific clients you’ve worked with
- Keep everything professional and avoid politics and religion
- Keep your posts positive – never talk about how bad business is for example
A Simple, Old-Fashioned Thank You
Secondly, take the time to thank your new fans for connecting to your page. As small businesses, we have a great advantage over larger ones in this area, and a personal touch can really set us apart from the competition.
We have less fans than larger businesses, but we have the advantage of being able to invest a little of our time to connect personally with each and every one of the people that “like” us. For example, I have the text of an email that I keep in a Word document. When acquire a new fan, I simply send them an email (as long as their privacy settings allow it) by pasting in the text. It takes but a few seconds to do, and I often receive replies from my fans saying how they appreciated the contact. Some of them even turned into “friends”, making them even more valuable.
Think about it for a moment – when was the last time you received a thank you for “liking” someone on Facebook? If you did, how did that make you feel? The bottom line is that your fans will like you more if they feel that you are a real person who cares about them and values the connection, rather than just seeing them as another faceless “liker”.
I hope you found this useful. If so, please take a moment to pass it on to someone else who may enjoy it, or simply hit the “retweet” button at the top. Thanks for reading and I appreciate you taking the time to stop by. As always, comments and suggestions are most welcome.
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Connect with the author, Nigel Merrick, on Google+
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I’m with you on the “liker” thing. It is so much neater to say, “Become a fan” than, “Like me.” Sounds kind of sad and lonely.
And is it still a fan page?
Thanks for the tips. I have what I think is a decent page set up, but haven’t come up with a good plan for using it. Food for thought!
Hi Amy – thanks for your comment, I appreciate it, and happy you enjoyed reading! Good luck with your fan page too.