Social Media and Social Good

Suggest to Friends Feature Now Available for Fans

What used to be a feature only available to Facebook page admins are now available to Facebook brand page fans! Yes, your fans and brand advocates may now suggest your page to their friends without the need for being an admin of your page.

 3 Ways to Get Your Fans to ‘Suggest Your Page to Their Friends’

In times when consumers are more connected, more informed and more active, it’s important to activate them to spread the love of your brand to their friends and connections. With 71%  of consumers more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals (more notes on how social media affect purchase decisions here) and 52% of Facebook users said their friends’ photos inspired their holiday choice and travel plans (more notes on how social media affects travel decisions here), it’s clear that consumers and your target audience are likely to listen to their friends and connections than to you as a brand.

Below are some of my suggested steps on how to activate your existing fans to share their love for your brand to their friends.

1. Incentivize

According to Market research company Lab42 — which surveyed 1,000 social media users about how they interact with brands on Facebook — one of the top reasons and key motivators why people follow a brand on Facebook is to print coupons and discounts. The study revealed that 77% of those who “Like” a brand on Facebook have saved money as a result. Therefore, the best way to motivate your fans to share about your page is to host a contest (make sure you’ve got an app for this to ensure that you don’t violate any Facebook Guidelines)

2. Inspire

Photos drive the most engagement on Facebook and photos that are shared the most are those either informative or inspiring. Choose motivational or inspirational quotes that are relevant to your brand and your fans in order to inspire them to share your updates and the love for your page. Be sure to include the URL of your page at the bottom of the photo so that even when saved in their own computers without the proper attribution, people will still be able to go to your page if they really liked the photo.

3. Engage 

Increasing the number of fans may not be an issue for big brands. When managing a brand of home improvement products, we didn’t have much issue with the growth and engagement as the brand is already quite established worldwide. However, if you’re a startup company trying to get some traction for your Facebook page, be sure to connect and engage with similar and more popular brands by providing and adding value to its consumers and existing fans.

Create a list of thought leaders and influencers in your niche and frequently visit their page to address concerns or questions that their fans are asking them. I’ve once discovered a really great Facebook page on Facebook marketing solutions through one of the comments in Mari Smith’s (Facebook Marketing Expert) page. I’ve learned about a really good personal finance blog when I’ve visited Dave Ramsey’s Facebook page. These influencers who have very niche followers do not usually answer all questions asked by their fans and followers. Take that opportunity to offer your valuable insight which will in turn pique the person’s curiosity and prompt them to check out your page.

Why this works

This works simply because humans are curious little animals. When someone “likes” our comment, we have an urge to see who that person is. If your page is congruent with the post they commented on and it is a good page, they will most likely click the “like” button and become a fan.

You can expect to get between 10 – 20% clicking through to see who liked their comment and well…you can see how this can get you lots new followers by just putting aside 10 minutes every day. It’s just one trick, but one trick that worked remarkably well for me when i used to implement it.

Getting new fans may just be the first step. It’s essential to constantly update your page with interesting and exciting status updates in order to keep your fans interested and spread the love for your page to their friends and connections.