February 13, 2012

Facebook ‘likes’ are quickly turning into currency for credibility. The more ‘likes’ your business has, the more seriously consumers will perceive your company. Extra bonus: every time someone ‘likes’ your page, each of your updates shows up in their news feed, thereby providing them constant reminders of your brand.

So how can you pump up your ‘likes’ to Apple Inc. and Gap levels (2.7 million and 1.4 million, respectively)? Follow these tips and you’ll soon be on your way.

Tag, Tag, Tag
 

In late January, Jill Homiak, founder of Presenza, a wrap top designer in Alexandria, Virginia, posted this to her company’s Facebook wall: ‘Who else is excited that Sofia Vergara is the new CoverGirl?!?!’ She tagged the word CoverGirl by putting an @ before the ‘c’, thereby alerting CoverGirl to the post. Her plan worked; it not only caught the attention of the cosmetics brand, but the brand ended up ‘liking’ her comment.

“By ‘liking’ my comment, it showed up on their Facebook page, which is ‘liked’ by more than 1.7 million people,” says Homiak. “It gave us huge visibility and we attracted more ‘likes’ in the process.”

Donate to Charity
 

PaySimple, a cloud-based accounts receivable provider out of Denver, Colorado is taking a touchy-feely approach to attracting ‘likes.’

“We are taking part in a month-long philanthropy campaign where, for every ‘like’ we receive, we will donate $1 to Kids Are Heroes, a non-profit that inspires volunteerism in children,” says Sarah Jordan, the company’s director of marketing, adding that the company is hoping to bring in around 200 likes and, so far, is up 40 from last month.

If you’re inspired to try this but aren’t sure what charity will resonate with your customers, Jordan recommends the trial and error method to see what brings about the most interest.

Host a Giveaway/Contest
 

On New Year’s Day 2011, Marc Joseph’s Facebook business page had around 3,200 ‘likes.’ Today, it has more than 42,000.

How’d he do it?

“I’ve been doing giveaways every month since January 2011 on Facebook and it has worked beautifully,” says Joseph, CEO and president of DollarDays International, Inc., a wholesale distributor out of Scottsdale, Arizona. “In addition, we really engage with our customers online and ask them what kinds of giveaways they want, which inspires even more attention and comments.”

Contests are also great ‘like’ drivers. Just before Christmas, Brina Bujkovsky, founder of The Younique Boutique in San Marcos, California, offered a free hanging quilt as the prize of a contest asking followers to describe their happiest holiday memories on her business’s Facebook page. The contest worked—her ‘likes’ went from 100 to more than 800 in just two weeks, she selected the winner at random and then asked them to post photos of the quilt once they received it—attracting even more ‘likes.’

Create a Splash Page
 

A splash page is a gate to one's Facebook wall and usually contains colorful graphics describing a company, promoting products or sales. Louis Hernandez, Jr., CEO of The Motor Bookstore, a car manual retailer in DeBary, Fla., uses his splash page to capture ‘likes.’

“A splash page asks the visitor to ‘like’ your page before seeing your wall contents,” he says. “You can bypass this, but the majority of visitors will follow instructions.”

Reward re-posts
 

In an effort to get the word out about her harp performance business, Merry Miller turned to Facebook in a creative way: she asked followers to do the work for her.

“I inspired my base to re-post a link to my love CD by offering to play a wedding for free to the person who got the most likes on my link,” she says. “I captured 100 likes in the first day.”

Get personal
 

Facebook users hate a hard sell. Endear your business to followers by posting on personal topics such a popular sports games and how you feel about the weather. Michael D. Haaren, co-founder of Rat Race Rebellion, a work-from-home job board out of Annandale, Virginia, posts about his obsession with Nutella and gets tons of feedback as well as ‘likes.’

Bottom line: remember to put the ‘social’ in social media; don’t talk at your consumers. They will just tune out.

Previous article: How to Leverage Facebook's Timeline Tool | Next article: How to Craft the Perfect Social Media Contest

Photo creidt: Thinkstock

Related Topics

• Technology
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Katie Morell, Article, Social Media for Business 2012, charity, contests, customer engagement, social media, Facebook best practices, Jill Homiak, Sarah Jordan, Marc Joseph, Brina Bujkovsky, Louis Hernandez

Join the conversation ( 9 )

• Streamgo Streamgonet 22 days ago

  

  www.rapidlikes.net can help you to increase all of the following facebookGoogle +1Twitter FollowersFacebook LikesYouTube ViewsWebsite Traffics(your skyblog page)this siteweb offre 1000 points in first loginI received 1300 likes on my page with RapidLikes please register with my Refer link:http://www.rapidlikes.net/ref-1.html

• Cole Chavis 3 months ago

  

  Just curious about a technical issue. I am an administrator of a business site and it does NOT allow us to read feeds or comment or like. What did these companies do differently to be able to interact more?

• Douglas Cohen 3 months ago

  

  I can't even get beyond the first paragraph to read the rest of this it is so ridiculous. The more likes you have the more seriously people will take your company? It's that easy? What happened to organic and authentic growth with followers who actually have an affinity for your company and your content? I guess it's all about quantity and not quality huh? This is what kills me though - "Extra bonus: every time someone ‘likes’ your page, each of your updates shows up in their news feed, thereby providing them constant reminders of your brand." REALLY??? That is flat out false. Ever hear of Edgerank? This is horrible. Empty followers who aren't engaged with your brand at all will likely never see your status updates. C'mon......

  • Katie Morell 3 months ago

    

    I'm sorry you didn't like this piece, Douglas. I do think it is important to look at the quality of followers. The purpose of this piece was to discuss how to capture more likes to hopefully make some of those people your customers.

• Sherri Bailey 3 months ago

  

  These are great. But the truth is, most of the contests you just mentioned are operating outside the Facebook TOS. You really aren't allowed to run contests on Facebook this way. Will they catch you and blow up your page? Maybe not, if you're small. But they can.

  • Katie Morell 3 months ago

    

    Thanks for your comment, Sherri. I'm hoping Facebook wouldn't blow up your page, but it pays to be careful and read the rules before launching a contest.

    • Sherri Bailey 3 months ago

      

      Here's the link to their TOS addressing contests like these, Katie. https://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php. Hope it helps.

      • Megan T. Steffen 3 months ago

        

        I was going to call out the same thing as @Sherri. Investing in Facebook apps is a part of running contests & sweeps. So many businesses are violating Facebook's rules which could have repercussions. All businesses should familiarize themselves with the Facebook terms and make sure they follow the rules.

• Drewry News Network 3 months ago

  

  to talk about Facebook likes, I'm wondering if there is an HTML code somewhere available on the World Wide Web, that webmasters can install into the template of their websites or blogs, that'll prompt readers of their site content to first "like" the content and promote the link immediately on their Facebook wall to their Facebook friends, before being allowed to read site content. Do you think that is a good practice for business, in driving tons of free traffic from Facebook? :-)http://www.drewrynewsnetwork.com/f9/using-twitter-effectively-your-apple-iphone-staying-connected-2648.html