How to gain Facebook likes for your business page

Getting people to 'like' your brand new Facebook business page isn't as easy as people think and in many cases it can be a rather slow process to grow your followers.

Here are a few things you can try...

• Actually ask your family, friends, networking peers, business associates, clients and any other contacts you may have to 'like' your business Facebook page. When your page is brand new it's a great time to ‘announce’ it on your personal FB page (include the link to your new page in the post).  Add the Facebook link to the bottom of any emails to clients/associates, etc.  Add the link to your newsletter, onto your website, email signature, etc.  Do whatever you can to make it easy for people to find your page and reference your Facebook page wherever you can. Send a brief email inviting your business contacts to connect with your business on your new Facebook page.
  
• Publish engaging content on your new page. It’s important to publish engaging, entertaining and interesting posts on a regular basis, and to keep an eye out for the posts that get the most engagement. If your posts are valuable to your followers, then they will share your posts with their friends, helping you increase your Facebook likes. Images are among the best types of post for driving engagement so make sure you publish images your followers can relate to and will like. Keep your promotional content to a minimum. Some experts suggest 80/20 – posting non-promotional content 80% of the time and promotional content 20% of the time. This number will vary depending on your business, so see what works best with your audience. Don’t be afraid to get personal from time to time. People want to know there’s a real person behind your company, and will be more likely to engage with a person than with a faceless brand.
• Like and interact with other businesses in your niche on Facebook, i.e. business you want to work with.  Make sure you are ‘your business name’ when you do this, and not ‘your personal name’.  It’s not guaranteed, but occasionally businesses will follow you back, and any engagement with your page will help you increase Facebook likes amongst their followers as well.
• It is important to note that Facebook will penalise pages that ‘beg’ for likes (as in, writing a post that says ‘like, share and comment’) – if they catch you they can demote posts and sometimes delete your page.
• If someone comments on your post, make sure you respond
• Tag other business pages in  your posts. When you tag other pages, your posts appear on their wall and may spark the interest of those pages’ owners and fans and generate more likes for your page.
• Put your Facebook page link on all your marketing materials: your business cards, pamphlets, signage and even on your print ads.