11 Creative Ways to Turn Traffic into Facebook Fans

Facebook is itself an excellent source of traffic, if you build an audience and leverage it properly. Before you can do that, however, you need to start that audience. If you have a website and an existing set of traffic channels, you can use those channels to build an audience of Facebook fans. From there, it’s a simple matter of utilizing those fans to perform the actions you deem necessary for the success of your business. Make your Facebook Page, fill out your profile and buckle in to build an audience quickly and effectively.

1. Link to Facebook on Your Contact Page

Your website has a contact page, correct? Chances are it has a phone number and an email address users can use to reach you during business hours. This is a great place to put your Facebook page information. Include a link to your page and inform users that one of the best ways to contact you for a quick reply is to write on your wall. If they prefer a more direct or private communication, they can send you a direct message. You don’t have to remove your email and phone number, just put the new Facebook information on top.

Of course, for this to be successful, you need to make sure to reply to comments on Facebook.

2. Use Facebook Comments

Does your blog have comments? Yes, it’s a great way to establish a community on your site, but you’re now trying to leverage that community. Switch to the Facebook comments plugin system and make your users comment through Facebook. Many of them will end up on your page when all is said and done, giving you additional followers and page engagement. Don’t worry about the SEO influence of Facebook comments; they work just fine these days.

3. Close Comments Entirely

This option is a bit more drastic; close your comments section entirely. This forces users who want to comment on a post to comment on your social media share of that post, rather than post on your site. Note that if you have an active community in your comments you may not want to shut them out so abruptly. If you don’t have much of a community, however, it can be highly beneficial. Not only do you funnel engagement to your Facebook page; you also save the time you would otherwise spend moderating comments and removing spam.

4. Link From Other Social Media Pages

Chances are while you’re working on growing your Facebook page, you’re also working on growing Twitter, Google+ and other social pages as well. The audiences you gather on each site will be somewhat distinct; some people use some platforms more than others. If you add links to your Facebook page in the profiles of your other social pages, you’re adding passive cross-promotion to each site. Share your audiences and convert them into one omniaudience, to maximize their reach and minimize the effort it takes to contact all of them with a given announcement. This includes your main website; social sharing buttons aren’t just for decoration.

5. Utilize the Facebook Widget Sidebar

First of all, you should have the Facebook sidebar widget on your site. It’s a quick and easy way to display your audience in a way that attracts new users. When a user sees the pictures of their friends on a display of people already liking a page, they’re going to be more likely to like the page.

You can take advantage of this for your business as well. Use your page to like other pages in your industry. Your page picture will show up in that display box and lead more people back to your page. It benefits the people you like, and it benefits you.

6. Leverage Your Author Byline

The days of the traditional call to action are fading. It’s entirely transparent to add a line about liking your page on Facebook to the end of your blog posts. Many readers today just skip the last paragraph on the assumption that a call to action lurks there, hidden in the guise of something more valuable.

Instead of burying your Facebook link in a call to action in your content, include it in your author byline. It doesn’t even need to be something major; just a “Like me on Facebook!” link after your name, or just a linked name itself. Do this on your site and it will look standard if you contribute to other blogs as well.

7. Run Cheap Targeted Ad Campaigns

Facebook advertising can be cheap and effective, if you have a base to build from in the form of your current audience. Just match their demographics and run a targeted ad campaign to find more people just like them. Keep it limited and keep it cheap; you’re not digging into a full marketing program here.

8. Use Your Newsletter Mailing List

You can use your email list in a number of ways to get more Facebook fans. If your Facebook page is small, for example, you can import the list and invite them manually. If your page is larger and that option is closed, you can still run searches for the emails and invite those people individually. You can also send out a newsletter announcing your Facebook page, if it’s new, or announcing an event on that page if it’s not. Just make sure you aren’t spamming your readers or abusing the privilege of having their addresses on hand.

9. Promote Posts to Friends of Followers

Promoting posts is like running tiny ad campaigns with your posts as the text. Invest a little cash to double your organic reach and share your posts with the friends of your followers; people already likely to be interested in what you’re doing. Leverage your natural followers by finding the people they know and getting them to follow you as well.

10. Reflect and Grow

Reflect, in this case, doesn’t mean sit back and think about your strategies. It means to bounce users from your Facebook page back to your blog and other social media sites. Get them to visit Facebook, then use shared posts to direct them back to your site. Keep them in this cycle as long as possible, so they fill their awareness with your content. This helps encourage them to share your content, comment on your posts and recommend your business to their friends.

11. Post More Content

Okay, so this one isn’t exactly a creative trick; it’s just a necessity that bears repeat mention. Every trick to gain traffic, every way to leverage an audience, relies on you having the content to back it up. Post content, share content, create content; the more value you can show to your users, the easier it will be to grow.