Jim Riley co-founded e-learning website Tutor2U.net with his
twin brother Geoff in 2002. Today, the site draws 1.78 million
unique visitors a month. These numbers are not to be sniffed at.
Riley shares his tips for setting up and seeding a Facebook fan
page.
I remember the moment I decided to set up a Facebook page for Tutor2u - lounging
by a swimming pool in Turkey, musing on the next steps for our
educational website. I knew that as an online brand Tutor2u needed
to engage more actively with the huge Facebook community. My
co-founder and twin brother Geoff was convinced that a dedicated
Facebook page was the way to go. He was right.
Setting up the page is simple. Once you've logged in to
Facebook, scroll to the bottom and click on
Advertising. Then click Pages and
Create a Page. Select the type of business and
fill in all the details. Easy!
Much harder is working out how to direct relevant Facebook users
to the page and, more importantly, getting them to like it. We've
taken advice on this from many sources in recent weeks and tried
lots of suggestions. Here's what worked best for us in those
first 100 days.
First, let everyone who comes into contact with your brand know
about your Facebook page. Ours is located here: www.facebook.com/tutor2u - come visit us right
now and don't forget to click the "like" button! We'd love to
have you and your friends as a Tutor2u Fan.
Did you see what I did there?
Lesson No. 1 - don't be shy about letting people know
your business is on Facebook. If you don't ask…
Put the URL in the footer of every email, newsletter, blog
entry, invoice, brochure or promotional material. Stick it on the
side of the van or the packaging materials you use. Tell all your
existing Facebook friends and ask them to pass it on. Promote the
page in exactly the same way you do your website address.
Facebook itself has some great social media plugins which
provide the code you need to promote the page on your website.
Momentum is everything. Getting the first 250 fans is
crucial.
We then set about creating loads of reasons for our Fans to
visit the page and to recommend it to their own friends. For Tutor2u, those
reasons were all based on blog content.
In recent years we've recruited almost 100 teachers from around
the world who contribute to our subject blogs. Their regular
contributions are now added to the Facebook page using a cool
application called RSS Graffiti. Each time a new blog entry
is written on our main site it is "automagically" added to
our Facebook page wall too! Like Google, Facebook loves new
content so it displays it on the newsfeed of our Facebook fans who
can then comment, share or "like" the new resources. It's a
great way of letting existing customers know about your business
news as well as encouraging word-of-mouth promotion.
So, lesson No. 2 - populate your Facebook page with
loads of compelling, fresh content.
I use the word "content" advisedly. Your Facebook fan page
wall shouldn't be filled with aggressive selling messages or
promotional offers repeated ad nauseam. Facebook
communication with fans should be about engaging with them.
Don't expect people to recommend your page if you persist with a
hard sell.
Third, and finally, we've focused on encouraging our website
users to connect their use of Tutor2u with Facebook (along with
other social media networks).
One application which has really helped is a social media
toolbar called Wibiya which now sits at the foot of each web
page, blog entry or other resource on the main Tutor2u website.
If a Tutor2u user finds a resource that he/she likes and wants
to bookmark or share on Facebook, the toolbar makes the process
straightforward. There is no need to leave our site to log in
to Facebook. A couple of clicks from the toolbar interface
and the resource is posted to a Facebook wall, shared on Twitter or
added to Digg or Linkedin. We've traced hundreds of new Facebook
fans to this toolbar alone.
Lesson No. 3? Encourage your website visitors to
share your site on Facebook and use applications that make the
process simple.
Back in the summer of 2010 I set myself a target of getting
1,000 Facebook page fans by Christmas. So we're delighted to
have gone well beyond that and, hopefully, you are now a fan too.
Now its your turn…