So you’ve set up a Facebook page for your business and you’re now looking for ways to grow that audience and turn your social media fans into email subscribers and paying customers.
But, how do you move a social media fan from just liking your Facebook page to actually returning to your page every day, reading your content, interacting, subscribing to your email list and eventually buying your product or service?
You can close the gap between getting a “Like” and making a sale with diligent and consistent work of nurturing your fans, getting to know them on a deeper level and softly moving them deeper into your sales funnel.
Use Facebook To Make Friends With Your Fans
The first step in turning your fans into buyers is to start building a connection with them, getting to know them, what their interests are and warm them up until they are ready to buy from you.
Use your Facebook page to inform, entertain and, most importantly, to inspire your audience, and ultimately develop a relationship with these guys, so when they’re ready to buy, you are the first choice on top of their mind.
Another reason you want to convert your Facebook fans into email subscribers is because you don’t know for how long Facebook will be around. You don’t own the platform – the only thing you can control is your connection to your fans.
The stronger the connection, the easier it will be for you to transfer all these hard earned fans over to an email list, where you can contact them on a more personal level in the future.
Your email list is by far your most important online asset you can have as a business. If anything happens to Facebook, you can still leverage your fans and continue your relationship with them on other platforms.
Here are five ways you can turn your Facebook fans into email subscribers and customers:
#1. Plan Your Strategy
First, you must have a plan for your Facebook activity. If you don’t have some goals to guide your work, then all the hours put into posting content, sharing and commenting can be a waste of time.
You should have an editorial calendar to help you schedule your daily tasks. Check out this social media content calendar created by Hubspot. All you need to do is download the spreadsheet and customize it the way it best suits your business.
#2. Engage With Your Audience
The great thing about using an editorial calendar is that you can post fresh content at specific intervals and have your fans get used to receiving regular updates. Now that you’ve taken this off the table, you can focus on creating engaging content, answering questions and commenting on you posts and other people’s posts. In other words, engaging with your fans and participating in conversations.
Social media is all about nurturing your fans with high quality, entertaining and educational content. Don’t shy away to start conversations by asking questions, asking people to answer to quizzes or take polls, etc.
You want to build a dynamic community around your brand where people love to come back to every day, not just for free coupons, but for the engagement and quality content that you put out there on a consistent basis.
An engaged audience is more likely to buy from you and recommend you to their friends and family. Keep in mind that having loads of fans is good, but what’s even better is having high-quality conversations with your audience and having them see you as the number one resource in your niche.
#3. Offer Facebook-Only Deals
Free offers and discounts are attractive to a lot of people, especially exclusive deals, as no one likes to pass on a good deal. Use this fact to your advantage and create exclusive offers for your Facebook audience.
You can create photo or video contests where people can participate by uploading a photo or video on your Facebook page using a specific hashtag. Ask people to vote so each participant can feel compelled to share their photo or video with friends and family and ask them to vote for them in the competition.
Another way to create Facebook-exclusive content is to share a special coupon code that your fans won’t be able to find anywhere else and use it to get a discount on their next purchase.
#4. Encourage Fans To Sign-Up For Your Newsletter
Having tons of fans is okay, but unless you convert these guys into actual buyers, you won’t make any money. The next step in the nurturing process is to invite your fans to join your email list.
You can use almost any of the big email marketing providers (e.g. Aweber, MailChimp, GetResponse, etc.) to embed an email opt-in form right into your Facebook page so you can easily build your list. You can add the “Newsletter” tab to your Facebook page and encourage your audience to join your list for future updates and exclusive deals.
#5. Measure And Adapt
Just like with the editorial calendar that helps you drip feed content on your Facebook page regularly, you also need to monitor the impact of your activity and do more of what works and do less of what doesn’t.
HootSuite is a social media management tool that helps you keep an eye on your Facebook page (and other channels) and have a direct overview of the most engaging content, the mentions, messages and comments to your page and even create streams for specific words or phrases.
Facebook is a great tool for connecting with your fans, learning about them (possibly even discovering some of their lateral interests) and interacting with them on an ongoing basis. Don’t turn it into a popularity contest by playing the numbers game.
Your goal is to build trust with your fans and have them perceive you as the main source of quality information in your niche. Be engaging like if you interact in your private life. Be entertaining and keep an eye on why you’ve started your Facebook page. You want to build a long-term business, with real people liking your content and benefiting from using your products or services.
The more connected your fans feel to your brand, the easier it will be for them to recommend you and buy from you when the time is right. We’d love to hear from you and see what strategies you’re using right now to keep your Facebook audience engaged and what’s working for you in terms of converting them into customers.
