Business 101: How to Get People to LIKE You – Tips on Building Your Facebook Fan Base

You Like me, you really Like me! How many of us are transported back to high school when we worried about how many people liked us, who liked us, or noticed when some else seemed to be liked more? Yes, Facebook has brought back that anxious feeling of how to get more people to like us. But never fear, with a few key strategies you can be the most popular Page on the block!

7 Tips to Get More Likes and Connect to More People

#1: Add a Like Box to your blog or website – The Like box allows people to Like you right from your website. Make it as easy as possible for people to Like you. It’s easy to get the code to install it. Go here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/ then put the URL to your Facebook Page in the top box, customize how you want it to look and click Get Code. Paste that code into a text widget on your blog sidebar or ask your webmaster put it on your website.

#2: Send an e-mail to your customer list – Obvious? Yes. Done? Less often than you’d think. Send an e-mail out with the message to come and Like your Facebook Page. Explain to your customers that they will get the latest news, special offers, and hot tips from your business – just make sure to deliver on that promise. These people already like you since they are doing business with you. So have them seal the deal on Facebook by Liking your Page.

#3: Run a contest – Give something away on Facebook. Make it something good and make Liking your Page a requirement for entering the contest. Use the Wildfire, Woobox, or North Social application to set your contest up. These applications all cost money but will help you run the contest or sweepstakes according to Facebook’s rules and they aren’t too expensive. Chocolate for Breakfast has used contests to get over 400 new Likes to their Page in one week.

#4: Just ask – Use a Welcome Page to have an image asking people to Click Like and telling them what your page is about and what types of tips your page offers. Use the Wildfire iFrame application or the Involver Static HTML application to upload an image to a custom tab. There are also many other iFrame applications that also work well.

#5: Be shareable – Post great content that will be shared. Helpful links, great articles, videos and your own blog posts are all things that can be shared easily. When people share it, your Page will be hyperlinked to the article and people will click over to see what you are about.

#6: Encourage conversation – Don’t just blast your message out. Ask questions, ask opinions, invite people to talk. When you get more interaction, people will see their friends talking on your page and click over to find out what the conversation is about.

#7: Bribe them – Yes, bribery works. Offer something cool when people like your page. Those same iFrame applications in tip #4 will allow you to have fan-only content which only appears after people have clicked the Like button. Take a look at the MakeUseOf fan-only content. Once you click Like, you get access to a bunch of free reports. Great bribe.

So hopefully with these tips you won’t be worried about what the cool kids think of your Page because you will be well-Liked!

Andrea Vahl is a Social Media Coach, Strategist and Speaker and the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies, now available for pre-order on Amazon!