10 simple tips for growing your Facebook fan base
8 January, 2013-Marketing and Patient Relationship Management
Getting more fans on Facebook can translate into more patients for your chiropractic office. It also makes it easy to build relationships with existing patients and compound their referrals online via the so-called six degrees of separation.
- Post consistently: No matter if you have enough time to post five times per day or only once, it is of the utmost importance to be consistent with your status updates. Whichever frequency you choose must be applied every single day of the week and especially on weekends since business to consumer posts on Sunday increase results by 30 percent, according to a report by Social Media Buzz Blog. Naturally, you can further improve your results by scheduling your posts when your target audience is most likely active on Facebook since the average half life of a link is only 3.2 hours, according to AdAge Social Media Stastics. But beware of completely automating your campaigns as HubSpot reported that auto-posts decrease likes and comments by 67 percent.
- Avoid sales pitches: Sales pitches like “Buy my product now” probably won’t work on Facebook since the average user spends about 20 minutes per day on it to play games, post photos and communicate with friends and family, according to an analysis by Infographic Labs and a report by AdAdge. Focus on building relationships by providing value with free information, education, and entertainment instead. Let your fans see what your company is all about without trying to make a sale.
- Ask questions: Ask simple questions that can be answered with one word to engage your fans without taking up too much of their time. Their responses should help you learn about their needs and interests so that you can cater your content and services to them better. On the other side of the coin, their answers/comments will appear in their friends’ newsfeed on Facebook and increase your exposure to a yet untapped market.
- Add images: According to a report by Mashable, photos posted on Facebook generate the highest percentage of likes and shares by fans and friends. As a result, adding appropriate photos to your fan page status updates will easily increase the virality of your posts and increase your online reach significantly.
- Promote posts: Once you have reached 400 fans/likes on your page you can promote each status update to your fans and their friends consistently for the duration of 3-5 days for an advertising fee of at least $5 via Facebook ads. The main benefits of using promoted posts are the increased shelf life of your status update (from 3.2 hours to several days) and the additional exposure to your fans’ friends regardless of likes or comments.
- Use “Click Like” as intro: This call to action is one of the easiest ways to increase the virality of your status update. It works especially well when paired with a photo and a simple statement that your fans can easily agree with, such as “Click like if you enjoy long walks on the beach” and a photo of a nice beach. Of course it makes more sense to tailor this to your industry and target audience. Use it as promoted post or ad to get a bunch of new fans for your page fast.
- Run Facebook ads: Facebook ads offer an effective way to increase the likes of your fan page since you can select multiple targeting options such demographics, interests, and location in order to reach your perfect fans. Similarly as with promoted posts, you can use a status update as ad or create one from scratch.
- Offer discounts: Once your page has reached 400 fans/likes you can utilize Facebook offers to attract new fans and patients with special discounts or freebies for visiting your chiropractic office. Just like promoted posts and Facebook ads this feature incurs a fee based on the desired reach.
- Encourage Facebook check ins: Post a sign at the front desk of your practice asking patients to use Facebook check ins in exchange for a discount or freebie. Facebook does not charge for this service, but your fan page basically gets a free online promotion to everyone your patient is connected with on Facebook (depending on Donthis privacy settings).
- Post a Like Box on your website: Post a Facebook Like box on your website to let your visitors “like” your fan page without even leaving your website.
By weaving these ten tips into your online activities you should be able to increase the Facebook fan base for your Chiropractic office steadily. Keep in mind that you are better off with a smaller amount of fans who actually interact on your page than with a lot of fans who never like or comment on your status updates due to Facebook’s Edge Rank which basically computes the popularity of a page.
For more tips on Facebook marketing for chiropractic check out our ebook The Chiropractic Marketer’s Survival Guide!
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