The strategy to get followers on Facebook and increase your post reach

Ever since the rise of social networks a decade ago, they have been becoming yet another marketing channel for companies to contemplate. In fact, an effective social media strategy could even catapult your e-commerce into success , just like we saw in our analysis of the Hawkers case.

With Facebook being the cornerstone of all the social networks, with more than 2 billion users, today we are going to show you a few tricks in order to get more likes on Facebook and increase your sales as a result.

Are you ready to increase your sales thanks to new followers on Zuckerberg’s social network?

Is a strategy to get followers on Facebook still worth it?

We’ll start by analyzing the current situation of the biggest social network in the world and its possibilities.

It’s a feeling that’s been floating around for a while now.

All the scandals related to data being leaked and sold added to the transfer of younger profiles to other social networks has made more than just a few “condemn” the mother of all social networks.

But how true is all that? Let’s take a look at some data:

This chart, obtained from official data released by Facebook for its investors, shows the number of daily active users.

1.449 billion people, who represent 66% of the 2.196 billion total platform users, log in on a daily basis.

And this percentage of daily active users has not changed in at least two years. Facebook is going down? It doesn’t look like it…

There is more data pointing to a pretty good scenario, such as the percentage of income and profit, which hasn’t stop increasing since the beginning.

It’s true that other social networks, especially Instagram, have stolen some of the youngest audience, but since Instagram belongs to Facebook, everything stays at home.

Plus, advertising campaigns for both social networks are done from the same platform in both cases, which makes the work much easier.

The algorithm change—Facebook’s cutting remark to low-quality fan pages

At the beginning of 2018, Facebook updated Edge Rank, the algorithm that chooses which posts are shown first.

With the objective of getting brands to create more paid campaigns, it limited the organic reach of fan pages. That is to say, when brands post, fewer followers see the posts.

The default reach decreased—that’s true—but there is more than one theory behind that fact.

What was decreased was the reach of those posts that barely spurred interaction, and therefore rewarding those that did.

In other words, when you post content on your brand’s page, its reach will begin being determined by the first impressions.

If the first users who see the post comment or like it, Facebook will keep showing it to more people. If it leads to interaction, the visibility will continue to increase.

However, if Facebook shows the post on your followers’ timelines and only a few of them react, the post will be condemned to be invisible. After all, it’s a business that profits from the content generated by users, so it makes sense that only posts that people like will be shown.

This change has punished brands with a lot of followers but low interaction, and it has rewarded those brands that put more effort into their posts.

The new objective of brands is to get followers while basing it on content that entertains and generates interaction. That’s the only way it translates into sales.

This is why we insist on getting quality followers instead of just a huge amount of them.

Advantages of growing your number of followers

Once you have analyzed the current situation and now that you know what a challenge it is to create content that can create organic reach, let’s see the advantages of achieving it.

1. Social proof

As online buyers, we like to know that we are not the only buyers.

By knowing that the brand is supported by lots of people liking it, we start to trust the brand, and our e-commerce’s conversion rate starts increasing.

It’s the empty bar syndrome that we have mentioned before. Users like to see that there’s a good atmosphere.

• A lot of followers
• Updated posts
• Opinions
• Comments and reactions to the posts
• Shared posts

Basically, a fan page that is alive and has real followers. If you manage to get that, you won’t have to worry about the reach.

2. Segmentation

Working with a good number of followers, you can create personalized audiences in order to launch Facebook Ads campaigns. This can be applied to huge pages and it lets you filter people who already know you.

Ads Manager itself, Facebook campaigns’ manager, has an option that allows you to link ads with people who are already followers.

3. Reach

It seems obvious—the more followers you have, the bigger the reach you’ll have. But watch out, you already know that there is another key requirement: the interaction generated with said followers.

It used to be a direct consequence and people used to even buy fake followers, but all that is now a waste of time and money.

How to get followers on Facebook

Now let’s take a look at 6 strategies to help grow your community on Facebook.

1. Include a “Like” button on your website

The possibility of somebody being able to become a fan of your e-commerce Facebook page without having to leave the website itself is a quick and powerful way to foster loyalty amongst your visitors.

It’s all about making it easy for the user and saving them the step of having to open Facebook and search for your business to follow you.

The “Like” button, along with the email newsletter subscription box, are elements that cannot be missing from your website .

If you want to increase your number of followers on Facebook , create your own button using this link. It’s as easy introducing your URL and then copying the code that’s generated into your website.

We already talked about it in other posts about user experience, but it’s important to remember that you have to be careful with where you place different buttons on social networks.

Your website must be a place to go, not a place to leave. Let them like it, but don’t make exit links to your social networks more accessible than necessary. Those visitors will leave and will never be back.

2. Implement a Social Locker

This plugin for WordPress is an amazing tool for gaining followers on Facebook and increasing the spread and reach of your contents.

Social Locker consists of hiding a file with a certain value, be it the best part of a post, a video, or a link to a downloadable file. That file can only be unlocked by a social action, clicking “Like” in this case.

That said, we recommend using it in moderation. Avoid including them in all of your content or your followers may adversely perceive you as only being interested in increasing your visibility, no matter what the cost.

3. Organize contests and drawings

Without a doubt, these are one of the best techniques for gaining followers on Facebook due to the huge results they generate.

Holding occasional drawings for certain products will bring in a big number of likes and shares at a low cost and will make you look like a friendly business that rewards its followers.

Even when the possibility of winning is extremely remote, people will still bite and take the bait. Even people that have just discovered your page will end up sharing the post. When it comes down to it, who doesn’t like free things?

Related posts: How to run a Facebook contest.

4. Enfócate en el engagement

You already know that if you don’t make much of an effort, most followers won’t see your posts.

Did you know that the majority of your followers don’t even see your posts? In reality, the number of followers you have on Facebook is not nearly as important as the number of “people who are talking about it”.

These numbers show your true reach in a much clearer way since it’s telling you the followers who are actually interacting with your content. 

Think about it like this:

It will be difficult for a follower that doesn’t communicate with you through comments, likes, or shares to end up being a customer.

So forget about the number of followers, and start creating engagement. 

In order to help achieve this, you can create surveys, ask some open-ended questions, as well as dedicate one day per week toward covering a specific theme.

Spend time responding comments. Creating a post that seeks interaction and then leaving people who did it out to dry without an answer gives a really bad impression and will make those people not want to comment again.

5. Keep your page updated

With the new algorithm and the loss of organic reach, many fan pages have simply thrown in the towel.

• Posts from more than a year ago on their timeline
• Unanswered reviews and comments
• Etc.

The image of an abandoned ship doesn’t help the business’ interests in the slightest.

What would be the point of Facebook sending visitors to an abandoned lot?

It’s better not to have a fan page than to show one that’s slacking. Remember the social proof? Would you buy drinks from a completely empty bar with posters from 2 years ago?

The same feeling applies online.

Nobody will follow a page whose last post is from the last century.

5. Create Facebook groups

Speaking of engagement, you should also think about creating a Facebook group open to your followers.

While it’s true that your participation would be done from your personal profile and not directly from your page, being the leader of a Facebook group has its many advantages. 

It helps in terms of strengthening your reputation online, improving your visibility, and getting members to be much more active, and interacting with you and amongst themselves. Instead of mere followers, you will have a community.

Another positive thing about groups is that, contrary to what happened to fan pages, organic reach has increased.

And what can we publish to the group? Obviously, content that can be consumed within the group. We’ll give you some ideas in the next section.

7. Create unique content for Facebook

Facebook likes internal content, which is to say, those posts that make users stay on the platform (for as long as possible).

Its business is based on showing ads to users, so the longer they stay, the more ads they can be shown.

With the current algorithm, Facebook gives priority to content that doesn’t take users outside the platform, such as links to blog posts or to other pages. The reach of content that takes users out is devalued against content that keeps users on Facebook longer.

One type of original content that is being highlighted over other types is live video. Facebook Live has doubled its volume each year since it was launched in 2016 and it already has two million streaming video per year.

Another good strategy is to create content for just one social network.

In order to save money, most brands recycle content from Instagram on Facebook, which isn’t good for the user nor for the social network itself.

You can talk about the same topic, but modify at least the image or the words you use to talk about it. People will value it more and they will want to view your content.

6. Figure out the best time to post

Unfortunately, this is no single formula regarding this point. You’ll have to run several tests to determine at what times your posts receive the  most feedback. 

Depending on what type of business you have, it’s possible that your followers will naturally be more active during the day, making it beneficial for you to post mid-morning.

Or maybe it’s more effective to do it around dinner time because those who follow you are more night owls.
It’s not only the time itself that is important.

Choosing the appropriate day to post certain types of content also has its benefit. For example, if you have a blog and you publish a new post each week, you will have to check for any notable difference in visitors when you post on a Thursday, compared to posting on a Saturday.

9. Send visits to your fan page

It’s possible that you’re carrying out an online strategy of networking based on comments on blogs and websites in your sector.

In those comments, or in those that you make in other forums or communities, you normally have a box to enter a URL. Once you have your fan page ready, up to date, and with some interaction, it is a good idea to leave your fan page URL instead of your website.

It will be a good first contact and it will bring you new followers that, after some time and effort, will get to know you turn into leads before eventually becoming clients.

10. BONUS: Encourage your followers to click on “see first”

If you want to get an added boost to your post reach, you should try this.

Unfortunately, your follows don’t follow only you. They follow many other brands too. And that means that your posts are competing against the other brands they follow.

When you visit a Facebook page, there is an option that you can use to set the priority of seeing those posts or getting possible notifications.

Invite your followers to click “see first” or even to activate notifications so they don’t miss anything new you publish.

Most followers won’t do it, but those who do will see your content first and before anything else.

They are also more likely to interact if they have prioritized it, which, at the same time, will trigger Facebook’s algorithm to show it more, resulting in your post having a bigger impact in this fight for users’ attention.

Time to conquer Facebook!

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys—Facebook is no exception. Gaining visibility and organic reach requires persistent hard work and effort in order to create a real community that interacts with your posts and content.

If you are able to do it, you’ll end up sending visitors to your shop where you can more easily show them offers and promotions and, bit by bit, turn that effort into sales.

These are the best tips you can follow in order to get more followers on Facebook. As you have already seen, most of them just require you to invest some time.

Once you increase your core of active followers, the next step is converting those same followers into customers of your e-commerce shop.

Don’t forget that we have already talked about that aspect of selling on social networks in this article!

We recommend that you read the following article on social commerce for more info 😉