Getting People To Like Your Page

I’ve been considering, now that I’ve been a free agent for a little over a year, what’s worked and what hasn’t.  Life-wise, writing-wise and, most interesting to some of you, marketing-wise.  For the longest time, my Facebook page was a fairly dull place.  That was because, primarily, I wasn’t giving it that much attention.  If you remember my post about ditching Facebook in my personal life, well, not a lot has changed since then.  I do have a personal account but it’s pretty de minimis.  I’m almost certain that I have fewer friends than your grandmother (online and in real life) and that’s just the way I like it.

But Facebook’s where the action’s at and after a year of ignoring my page I started to post more.  As of this writing I have just about 2,500 fans.  And a lot of advice about what to do, and what not to do, to gain more.

First, what not to do:

“Like for like” pleas.  “Hey, I saw your page, it’s great, blah blah blah, come give mine a like.”  This seems, to some, to be a great idea.  It isn’t.  Because, put yourself in the other person’s shoes.  They’re sitting there–I’m sitting there–asking, who is this person?  If I get to know you from your comments on my page, as a fan, then I might come check out yours. But I officially “like” very few pages, as doing so is something of a formal endorsement. Unless I feel really confident in who you are and what you’re about, I’m not going to tell my fans, directly or indirectly, go check this person out.  And really, the best thing for me–and for you–is for everyone to stick to pages in which they have a genuine interest.
Request free promotion.  This is a variant on the “like for like” deal.  You see that I’m an author, that I have a reasonably good following; you come to my page and ask me to promote your book, figuring that you’ll gain the same following.  Except it doesn’t work like that.  Even if I did read your book, and like your book, enough to recommend it to people that wouldn’t necessarily translate into anything.  Highly regarded, world famous reviewers write glowing reviews of books all the time.  Books that, for the most part, nobody buys.  My Facebook page can’t do for you what The National Book Critics Circle can’t.  When was the last time you sat down to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ?  Moreover, you know nothing about me and nothing about my fan base.  You could have written the best chick lit ever and it wouldn’t matter; my fans, by and large, aren’t really your market.

You’re not going to build a following, on Facebook or anywhere else, trying to poach fans from other authors.  With or without their cooperation.  Everyone who decides to like your page, or not, is doing so–regardless of how they found your page–because something about it appeals to them.  So, although it may sound obvious, it’s really not: you have to have appealing content.  Not in the sense of mindless, endless advertising (this may be appealing to you, in the sense that you’re hoping it’ll sell something), but in the sense of, well…actual content.

Think about the pages you like.  What do they share?  What do you wish they’d share less of?

The goal here isn’t to repost everything George Takei shares because you like George Takei but to recognize what’s individual in, for example, his page as a means of recognizing what’s individual–or can be–in yours.  Takei is successful, ultimately, because he’s being himself.  Yes, he (and presumably his admins) shares more than a few cutesy animal pictures but he also calls out Clarence Thomas as an Uncle Tom.  There’s a living, breathing human being behind that page and you can tell.

Decide what you stand for and what you don’t.  It can help sometimes to write a comments policy, even if you never post it.  What kind of interactions do you encourage?  What do you outright ban?  At the end of the day, what kind of page are you trying to create?  Speaking for myself, I try to encourage discussion of my books (for those who read them; not all of my Facebook fans do), history, and various Pagan-interest topics.  I do lose fans, when they realize I’m not Christian, or not strictly straight, but that’s okay.  I’m not trying to appeal to everyone.  And neither should you, because it’s impossible.  All you’ll do is drive yourself–and everyone else–crazy with boredom.

So, keeping all that in mind, here are a few concrete suggestions:

Make interesting memes, and put your (page) name on them.  Got a favorite quote, that you consider your life’s motto?  Find something really funny?  Memes are sound bites in shareable form.  A meme gets shared when a blog post length status doesn’t.  Why?  Because the latter takes real investment to read.  Which is great, for any hardcore fans who want to take the time and indeed have the time available.  But for the rest of the world, time commitments should be optional.  People want content they can digest now.  And that content is what gets liked, and what gets shared.  And, in turn, the more likes and shares you get, the broader your page reach becomes.
Share links to your blog.  Let people know what the article is about, preferably in one (funny) sentence or less.  This is where your in depth content should be.  Not on Facebook.  Seriously, when was the last time you turned to Facebook because you felt like reading a 5,000 word article over lunch?
Get personal, but not too personal.  People want to know about you.  They don’t want to hear the gritty pathos of your last encounter with Aunt Emerald.  Unless it’s funny.  And even then, be careful.  There’s a line between your internet persona and your real life.  Only you can decide where that line is, and how much of yourself–your real self–you want to give away.  But if you’re not careful, things can get really creepy, and even downright scary, really quickly.
Learn to say no.  To fans.  To the randos who want money, or want you to like their page.  Boundaries are everything, when your career involves the internet.
Don’t boss your fans around.  Yes, if someone’s being outright horrible, ban them or do whatever you need to do to maintain a safe environment.  But I remember, years ago, I was on a page that I actually really liked but had to leave simply because the page owner–and she loved to remind everyone that she was the page owner–literally would not let anyone have a conversation.  Every other post was her telling people she “didn’t want drama,” etc etc etc, and calling people out for doing the internet version of looking at her funny, when in truth she was the only one creating drama.  I’ve seen that a fair bit since, and it’s just never a good thing.  Nobody needs to know how much you hate someone else on another page.  Nobody needs mindless, endless vaguebooking.  Calling on your fans to secretly hate, actively troll, and outright cast evil spells on (yes, I’ve seen all of this with my own two eyes) someone is the worst kind of middle school twaddle.

Decide what you stand for, online and off, and then stand for it all the time.  Focus, to the extent necessary, on why you wanted a page in the first place and on what you hoped it would accomplish.  Spend less time trolling other people’s pages for more fans and more time interacting with the fans you do have.  If you wait until you have ten thousand fans to give a shit about them, trust me: you’ll never have more than about ten.