Please share your tips for growing your Facebook page

[dadsdiary]

Hi all,

I see lots of bloggers out there that have successfully grown their Facebook pages to hundreds of likes and subscribers and so on. It is obviously a great way of reaching new people with your content.

Please could you answer the following questions:
1. How long have you had the Facebook page?
2. How many subscribers do you now have?
3. How did you do it?

The reason I ask is, my Facebook is really feeble. Ok granted I haven't been doing it very long but I think part of the problem is that I want to remain anonymous i.e. I don't want many of my existing Facebook friends knowing I blog in case they judge me. I don't think I'm ready to share that side of me with people yet.

So I created a new Facebook page for my blog, www.dadsdiary.co.uk under a slight pseudonym so that it's not in any way connected with my "personal" page. The drawback of that is that I won't be using my existing friends who are more likely to 'like' and 'share' my content to help me grow my page, but I guess I feel more comfortable with it that way.

However am I missing a trick here? Or are there some really good, easy ways to grow my Facebook page from nothing to a big following in a relatively short time?

And also if I linked the Facebook page with my existing personal profile would people be able to tell that Dad's Diary is my creation?

I would be really interested and grateful for everyone's experiences of using Facebook pages to promote their blogs. Thanks for reading this and helping a newbie out!

---

P.S. You can view and like my Facebook page [[//www.facebook.com/pages/Dads-Diary/181504515372901 -->here

My blog (grave-mistakes.blogspot.co.uk/) gets up to 2000 hits per day almost entirely by promoting it via Facebook Groups. I think the key is writing a blog targeted for a niche market - in my case "Grave Hunting". What I suspect will not work is writing a blog that is too similar to the hundreds of other blogs out there.

I'm in the same boat, but I don't use Facebook to promote my blog, I use it for my online business...

I have over 1000 followers on Twitter and use it a lot, I love the interaction & have met loads of interesting people and companies via Twitter.

Facebook, however, is a harder nut to crack in my opinion. I find it really hard to build up likes & not sure what the answer is!

The only thing I have done recently is pay for an advert to appear on a vintage magazine Facebook page. I specialise in selling products made with vintage fabric, so I tapped into my target market. I had over 100 new likes in the first 30 minutes after the advert appeared & I'm still gaining new likes each day. Since gaining these new fans, they have been really involved with my page. They like all my vintage photos & share my offers and discounts with their friends.

Even though I'm still only on 250 likes, the people who like me are more engaged...it helps me feel like I'm not just talking to myself!

So I guess the answer is to reach out to your target market...

www.facebook.com/pouchdesigns

I've been thinking about creating a facebook page for my blog but not sure it's worth it.

What category did you use and does it make a difference? Entertainment? Brand? Something else?

By the way, I've followed you on Twitter :-)

Thanks all!
Neil, I dropped you a follow back.
Sewingmummy that's interesting, I think Facebook is a tough nut to crack but once you get some momentum it must be a great way of getting new readers, i.e the random crowd that don't blog. Relies on people sharing your content though.
Churchstretton - love your blog! That is very niche and great results from Facebook so it proves it's useful!

Anyone else? Thank you..

I think the reason it's hard, is because your blog is quite general - it's a good read, but there's no niche focus, so you don't really have a target market to aim at - not counting mumsnet of course.

Plus your desire to remain anonymous means you can't even get traction from friends, so you're making it doubly hard for yourself.

dadsdiary, likes and follows duly sent your way. ;)

The thing with social media is... well, you have to be sociable.

Twitter is easy; once you're into 4 figures, there's a tipping point and you get more eyeballs heading your way.

I think the same goes for Facebook but in a much harder way. No one really knows that you've liked them or who you are or pretty much anything unless you (a) remember to like from your personal page (so it counts for the like tally) and (b) leave a message to say who on earth you are.

Google Plus is somewhere in the middle. You end up with multiple pages like Facebook... but it's less difficult to see who's interacting with you, so you're more likely to get reciprocal pluses (if that's what you're after).

I'm actually starting to wonder if the Twitter model is best i.e. one account is enough (unless you want more). Should I really try to run so many different social media accounts? Is there true advantage to spreading yourself so thinly? After all, whatever account I'm on, I'm still 'me'... Answers on a postcard, type thing! lol x

It is very hard to keep track of all the social media isn't it! I'm currently running with Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ - sure it will pay off in the long run but it's a pain to remember everything.

Also Neil - take on board your point, you're right, I don't really have a niche or an angle. I'm still finding it!

Thanks for your comments everyone.

Hi,

Can I suggest a give-away using Rafflecopter, where one of the options is 'like my facebook page' (make sure you add the correct link!)?
Not everyone likes Rafflecopter, but it's been the best way to grow my FB page.
I expected many likees to 'unlike' after the prize draw, but few do!

HTH

My FB page

Have you tried using something like this hootsuite.com/ to cover all your platforms in one place so you don't have to keep goign to different places