How To Turn Your Fan Page Into A Community

For completeness, let’s begin at the beginning. Not everyone is up on what Facebook is all about. So here are some basics:

What is a fan page? It’s a place where your business or special interest followers can engage with you in fun and interesting ways.

What does a good fan page look like? I’m so glad you asked. We’re going to be looking at a few, but the question could best be answered with another question: what do you want it to look like? And answering that question is what I am going to center upon for the bulk of this article.

A really great fan page contains information about your products, and about you. It has lots of interesting photos, and it just explodes with fun. And after all, isn’t your fan, by definition, someone who is excited?

I think you’re going to be surprised as to who has the biggest followings on Facebook. I know I was.

Who Is Ranked Number One For Engagement Among Fans?

AllFacebook, the unofficial Facebook blog, listed the 2013 top 25 for Facebook’s Most Talked About Pages. I’m going to look at the top 3. If fans are talking about the page that means that means the content is having some sort of impact.

Number one is Best Vines with over seven million talking about it. Number two is Jesus Daily, which is actually recovering from an enormous dip with just under six-and-a-half million interactions, followed by Oiesamamada at number three. While the reason for their ranking may not resonate with you, the reality behind it should definitely grab your attention.

People are inclined to frequent places that connect with them on an emotional level.

So don’t expect to be Spock from Star Trek, and inspire a following—unless you’re looking to reach Trekkies. If you want engagement, you need to do more than present a few products.

Who Is Ranked Highest for Engagement Among the Brands?

Number one is sexy old Walmart, with 31M fans and close to 600K talking about them—Walmart not the fans. And just when you thought it was going to be boring, lo and behold you have photo and plug for Bear Grylls’ new show Get Out Alive. Go Walmart! One hour after posting that plug, 1,906 people had liked it and another 197 left comments. Not bad for a place that sells disposable diapers.

Check out the actual pages for Walmart, Red Bull, Disney, Pepsi and Starbucks. If you want to see something done well, follow these folks.

I personally think Red Bull is doing an exceptional job at telling the story that connects with their fans. They splash all of the adrenaline and testosterone that any fan could want across their high-energy page using action photos and humor.

Posting Strategies

How often and what does a fan page owner want to post?

Daily posting is good. Post pictures, links to things you like, to your articles, and ask questions:

Such as—What did you do this weekend?

Get people to comment and share what they’re thinking. Do NOT let this consume you. Pick a time and limit yourself to that time, otherwise you’ll burn out and abandon it before you start to pick up steam.

Schedule events:

Such as—Click “Like” if you are watching the Braves play the Marlins. Go Braves, woo-hoo!

FUN is the essential ingredient in engagement. But be yourself. Don’t schedule a Braves/Marlins-like event if you hate baseball. People can smell a phony a mile away.

Be serious at times, but allow for social moments. One expert suggested following the 80/20 rule. That’s 80% fun and interest and 20% promoting your business. All work and no play make Jane a dull girl.

Aesthetics

Make sure your page is visually interesting. If you haven’t even bothered to put your profile picture up, don’t expect people to open up and tell you what they’re thinking? It’ll look like you’re trying to hide.

Some people have already got a color theme or message on their webpage. It’s a great idea to carry this through to Facebook. Kim Garst uses lots of color for her personal page and Boomm Marketing & Communications incorporates nice, big graphics and images for their business page. Both of these strategies help engagement and encourage fans to interact.

If you haven’t got that worked out yet, certainly not everyone is good at this sort of thing, here are some easy fixes:

Ask a good photographer take your photo. It can be a photo of you and your spouse, you and a pet, you on your Harley or surfing, but make it something that shows enthusiasm. And don’t forget to smile.

Post photos that you love—things with bright colors. You want your fan page to visually engage. Content is important but it’s not everything.

Make Content Engaging

Put together a content calendar. Plan your postings a week, a month and even a year ahead of time—businesses do it. Planning is good but I don’t advise planning down to the nano level. Just the broad strokes idea of where you’re going is plenty. In September football begins, October leaves turn colors, etc. It will simplify what to post, and make it more fun for your readers.

Another idea is to hold a contest. Marketers have used them to draw new prospects to their businesses for decades. It’s tried and true. Check out the Red Bull Illume Image Quest: Stunning pics part one. These photos are randomly drawn from their first 250 entries. What Red Bull did right is they didn’t just hold a sweepstakes with a winning number. To win, participants had to take a photo. That required effort. Fans invested and it connected them to Red Bull in a more meaningful way.

In the End

I’m not going to be able to tell you everything you need to know about building a following on Facebook in one article. Besides, there’s a personal side to starting and posting on Facebook that only you can discover. Taste is personal. Communities are personal, and arise from shared interests among the people who participate.

What I can say is pick one or two of the pages linked above, and following them for a while. Watch what they post and how often. See who follows and what sparks conversation. Whatever it is, adjust it to fit your page.

Once you’ve made it your own and have stayed faithful, you begin to build a Facebook community.