Building an Audience
I had a potential client call me today regarding getting started on Facebook. I told her the most important thing is to start building an audience on Facebook. She explained to me
that she doesn’t know anything about Facebook or any other Social Media platform. All of the platforms have one crucial element in common which is you need to build an audience. This sounds like common sense, however I have found that this isn’t as common as you think. For instance, if you are not willing do paid advertising on Facebook, and you only have 50 likes, it’s going to be difficult to make Facebook worthwhile unless you get lucky with a post that goes viral.
How to build an audience.
First let me discuss how things are different. You can build an audience before you have a product or service. In fact, this is more common than not. If you have the ability to put out solid content, while building your audience, you can then come up with a product or service to offer your fan base. Think about this. It wasn’t too long ago where you needed a product to build an audience. This was costly and risky and no longer the best strategy in most cases.
The easiest way to build an audience with Facebook is to first connect with everyone that you know on your personal page. From there, with your business Facebook Page you can simply click a select all button and invite every single friend to LIKE your business page. Now you have something to work with and it’s a start! Once you start putting out compelling content people will start engaging with you more. Make sure that you keep up with the dialog. Too many people ignore and never reply to the comments or questions they get. I personally stop engaging on posts when this starts this happens.
Ask your Connections to Like, Comment, and Share your Post
I know, I know, listen I agree, you shouldn’t have to do this. After all, all you are trying to do is make a living. However, here’s the truth. People think about themselves 95 percent of the time. It’s just the way it is. However, every like, comment, and share dramatically adds to your organic reach. It’s incredible what two shares, five likes, and a few comments can do to your organic reach. You need to ask your close friends and family engage with your posts. You need to ask them to like, comment, or share your post. Ninety percent of them wont. However, don’t get frustrated. It is what it is, and the other ten percent can go a long way. Facebook wants you to pay to get your content out. Therefore, when you post only a few people see. You can change this by putting out solid content and getting your connections to engage on your posts. Mostly likely nobody is engaging because nobody is seeing it. It’s viscous circle. However, ask the people that care about you most to engage in someway on your business page. I have found to ask other small business owners and entrepreneurs because they are the ones that “get it”. You have to be in it for the long run. The long game. If you bust your butt for two weeks and stop, then you essentially wasted your time. Keep at it, keep grinding, message people asking if they personally can or know anyone that can benefit from either your product or services.
It’s not easy and it’s real work. You also need to make this fun. If this isn’t fun you won’t stick with it. It can be fun, I promise.
