In the last couple of months I stumbled on a great way to generate a lot of activity and buzz on my Facebook page. In my post on 6 Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans, #5 was about inviting your fans to share links.
5. Invite your fans to share links to their site/blog/fan page/twitter. My monthly Brag About Your Blog Day has become quite popular. Recently over 200 people bragged about and posted links to their blog. It was an awesome way to learn about what people are doing, what their interests are find potential JV partners and guest posting opportunities.
I just hosted another Brag About Your Blog Day and the results surpassed last month. Nearly 300 people posted links to their blog along with a short description about the topic of their blog.
This screenshot was captured about 24 hours after I initiated the event.
- Added over 130 new fans to my page
- Over 436 people clicked the link to my page in 24 hours
- Lots of people (I didn't count) tweeted about the event
- The post was shared on countless profiles
- I got a great testimonial from a former client
- Everyone was thrilled that they got to promote their site and said nice things about me which made me feel warm and fuzzy and happy! :-)
You can do this too. It does not take a lot of effort and it's a lot of fun. I love seeing who shows up, what they have to say, and what they're writing about.
Here are the steps I took that you can easily model:
1. Come up with a clever hook. What can you invite people to share on your page? A picture? A link to their favorite xxxx? A link to their book? A tip on your topic? It's got to be about them for this to work really well, in my opinion.
2. How often will you host the event? I like making it a monthly (or weekly) event that people can look forward to. I started getting questions about when I was going to host the new Brag day. Since I'm actively engaged with the thread throughout the day, I prefer doing it monthly.
3. If you're creative or can spend a few bucks, get a graphic image designed to help draw attention to your event. You'll be able to use it on blog posts, Facebook, twitter, your website.
4. Craft your copy and post it in the morning. I like to give BABD a full day of my attention (dipping in throughout the day). Be patience because due to Facebook's mysterious algorithms, you may not see activity right away. Click the like button and post your own comment to start the ball rolling.
5. Create a tracking link with budurl.com or bit.ly to use in your promotions so you can track your efforts. (click on the date/time of the post to get the unique URL for the post)
6. Let everyone outside of your Facebook network know what you're doing.
- Tweet about it (3-4 times thoughout the day)
- Post info to groups you belong to on LinkedIn and Facebook
- Got an email list? Send an announcement with a link to the direct wall post. This one tactic alone will net you new fans. In order to comment or like and contribute to the wall post, they have to like your page first.
- Post in discussion groups and forums you belong to
- Write a blog post
7. Participate. Once you start to get activity, pop onto your page throughout the day and "like" every single comment. Add a your own comments, respond to questions, thank people for playing. When you like and comment, a notification goes to everyone who has already commented. This brings them back to get updates AND increases your visibility in the Facebook News Feed (very important!).
8. Read every comment. I found a wonderful testimonial from a former client. That's gold so I did a screen capture with SnagIt in case I want to use it later.
9. Follow up. Report on what happened. Feature some of the people you connected with. Write another blog post about your event.
Did I forget anything? What would you add for getting the word out?
A lot of people said they wanted to "steal" this idea. Hey, go for it! I don't consider it stealing. I'm sure I got the idea from someone else as well.
If you do host something like this on your Facebook Page, please let me know.
Related Post:
Brag About Your Blog Day Nets Big Visibility Opportunity
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You are rockin', Denise! Thanks for the tips and I love the increased connections one can make when being invited to post/brag about oneself, as well as the potential exposure gained when you are the host!
Posted by: Shelleymcarlisle | Monday, February 14, 2011 at 11:45 AM
People should really take the time and invest in building thier own lead generation websites as well as explore other ways to generate leads.
Posted by: Ron | Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 03:41 PM
Oh, you just remind me how important TRACKING is! This is the part that I'm lacking off. I'm too lazy to track my blog's performance. Nice advice Denise, thank you.
Posted by: Bisnis | Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 10:58 PM