How to get more likes on facebook

Facebook has changed the way we communicate online and what started up as a social networking site has now evolved into a media machine. Yet one subject that I get asked about more and more is how a person can get more Facebook likes and followers.

I have built numerous Facebook pages where we have created audiences from scratch and built them up to be media machines where engagement is high and fans are happy.

Check out my results for one of my clients over a lengthy period (note we did not spend a penny on ads)

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In this article, I will go into massive detail on how to grow a Facebook fan base and how to grow your business or brand using Facebook.

Ready?

Let’s do this:

Step 1: Start With The End In Mind

A big mistake many people make when it comes to Facebook is not knowing what Facebook success looks like.

I understand that this is confusing so let me dispell some myths.

Firstly it does not matter how many ‘fans’, ‘likes’ or ‘followers’ you have on Facebook and while I know that this is going to be a tough pill for many of you to swallow, you need to swallow that pill right now!

What matters when it comes to Facebook is two things; Firstly it is attention and secondly, it is engagement.

Let me explain.

It makes me mad when I hear people talk about a business page and say ‘they only have 200 likes’ or something similar so my stock answer to them is ‘sure but those 200 are all CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies’.

The usual response is ‘how do you know that’ and of course I don’t, but neither do they and this is my point.

Just as in SEO, a backlink from one site can be 1000 times more powerful than 100 backlinks from other sites, Facebook likes are the same.

So my main goal when trying to help a business is to develop them what I call ‘quality followers’.

I do not make this a numbers game, instead, I want this to be about communicating with the people that can help you to reach your goals.

To do this ask yourself a few questions:

  1. What Do You Want From Facebook?

  2. What Are You Prepared To Give To Your Audience?

These are really key issues that any business needs to address.

The first question usually ends with a comment from a business along the lines of ‘I want more customers’.

Yes, don’t we all!

However that is not going to happen directly, Facebook is your megaphone. It is a way to grab attention and to tell your story to your audience. In this sense imagine yourself in the street standing on a chair with a megaphone, now what are you going to tell people?

This is Facebook; Except you are lucky enough to be able to increase the volume of your megaphone and even select the right ‘ears’ for people who might like what you have to say (using Facebooks boost and ads).

So when I ask a client what they want from Facebook I end up telling them ‘you want more attention from the right type of people’.

The second question is equally important; What are you prepared to give your audience.

If we go back to the street again. There you are, stood on  the chair with the megaphone. So how are you going to get attention for your business?

You need to give people something and that is the next step.

Step 2: What Content Should You Give On Facebook

Ok, so you now know you want attention and you need to give people something in order that you can get the attention in the first place.

This is the nuts and bolts of getting more likes so here are some ideas:

  1. Blog posts
  2. Videos
  3. Other peoples content
  4. Memes
  5. Contests
  6. Photos
  7. Stories
  8. Quizzes
  9. Facebook Live

So there you have 9 things that you can use to get the attention of people, however as you will see in a second you can maximise your results on Facebook with a bit of psychology:

How To Create Content That Gets Shared On Facebook Using The Shareholic Method

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Being able to generate Facebook Traffic is a skill because it comes down to  what content you are going to place into the Facebook Platform.

My old computer teacher used to say ‘if you put rubbish into a  computer that’s what you get out’ and the same goes for Facebook. However, you need to understand how people use Facebook and why they are there.

To aid this process I created what I call ‘The Shareaholic Method‘ which I used to go from 535 visitors to over 35,000 in 12 weeks.

The Shareaholic Method came after I discovered data from the New York Times which focused on the psychology of sharing.

Their data stated:

“94% Carefully consider how the information they share will be useful to the recipient.”

“49% say sharing allows them to inform others of products they care about and potentially change opinions or encourage action.”

“68% share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about.”

“73% share information because it helps them connect with others who share their interests.”

“84% share because it is a way to support causes or issues they care about.”

In addition, they placed people into set personality types which I grouped the most effective together and called them ‘Shareaholics’.

These are people that are addicted to sharing information in Facebook and to access these people each article should create debate, be helpful, contain some facts or a strong opinion based on experience.

With this in mind,  you can go out and create one of our content types and start gaining more traffic from Facebook of you stick to the above template.

However, another question I get asked a lot is if you should buy likes and you may be surprised what I have to say:

How To Buy Likes On Facebook: The Right Way

It may come as a shock to you but it is OK to buy likes. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.

Buying Likes from another site= Wrong way

Using Facebook to promote your page for likes= The Right way!

There are many social media companies offering to get you a set number of ‘likes’ for a small fee and even more social media companies who say they will ‘grow’ your reach that buy these likes.

If you run a business you need to know how to audit your page.

To do this go to Facebook and click on insights:

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Once inside your page you need to click on the people tab:

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Once you have done this you can see the mix of your fan base.

Depending on your business you might have more people in one country than another but be wary if you see the vast majority of your fan base in a third world country that your business does not sell to!

However if you want to buy likes you need to get more ‘bang’ for your buck and here is how:

First press the promote button on your page:

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Once this is up you need to press the promote your page button AN NOT the learn more button.

If you do it correctly you will see a window pop up like this:

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When the box pops up you will see how your ad looks in the Facebook feed, the text is drawn from your ‘about’ information.

As you can see, in this add my about info cuts off so I need to go back and alter this to make it more compelling.

To do that go to your about section and click on the short description to edit it:

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When you edit it, you need to get it really snappy so it that grabs attention.

If you are not sure what to write just go and check out pages that you admire and go from there. For example, I am a fan of The Middle Finger Project and their Facebook short description is awesome:

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And if you think that was too strong, consider the fact they have over 22,000 likes.

So go back to your page and really try and up your game, in addition when you promote your page your images need to be super cool as well.

For  my page I use a tool called Stencil to create my images.

After I log into my dashboard I click the headers button:

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Once I have done that I then go and grab one of their background photos:

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There are thousands of images to choose from, and I am able to add text, change fonts and also add my logo.

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Once I am happy I can upload to Facebook and that combined with a new kick ass short description can help me to get more clicks:

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Once I am happy with this I then set my targeting and promote the page.

WORD OF WARNING:

Whenever you start to play around with any type of Facebook cover and add text you will need to test it out both on the screen and also on  your mobile device.

The reason for this is that Facebook reduce the quality of an image and where your nice text is on your cover shot, well it might not look so great on a mobile device!

Using A Quiz, Contest Or Giveaway On Facebook

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If you are looking to get more likes running competitions or quizzes can be a great way to get traction.When it comes to competitions the prize is of course, the core reason people will come and like your Facebook page.

So what you offer as a prize is a serious issue. If you are a cheap ass and want to offer a pair of cinema tickets then fully expect your competition to flop, but if you offer a years supply of cinema tickets that should gain traction.

But how are you going to set up these competitions?

There are a few tools that are great and among them is Woobox. It has a massive list of applications you can use including video competitions but let’s look at their quiz option.

Once you log in, setting up a quiz is pretty easy. Pick your offer.

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In our case we have created a quiz:

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Choose the quiz type based on which type of responses/questions you want to ask then go off and create the quiz using their simple drag and drop system.

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Once you have done this you need to add questions and responses:

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Once you have done this you are ready to go and publish your quiz.

I have also used another tool called Fyrebox and gained some great results with that. You can see how to use that in my other post on social media strategies.

Conclusion

Getting likes on Facebook is something that takes time, but ultimately you can’t judge a page based on the number of likes. You need to consider how ‘engaged’ these people are.

If you own a business or want to set up one up, Facebook is going to be a great tool that you can use to reach more customers.

If you go out and buy 5,000 likes from some ‘shady service’ then you are not using Facebook for what you want.

On the other hand, if you run a company and you have someone run your social media you need to keep an eye on what is happening.

Facebook can be an amazing tool to help your business grow but only if you respect the platform for what it is, the harder you work on this the better things will be for you.

If you liked this post follow me on snapchat where I give tips out about social media all the time.

Simply download the app then add me by scanning the code below:

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Thanks for reading!

posted June 30, 2016

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