For businesses big and small, Facebook offers a great opportunity to connect with customers and build awareness.  Collecting Facebook fans through the use of the ‘Like’ button is a great way to promote all you have to offer and target potential customers with offers and news.

However studies have shown that many fans will often ‘unlike’ a brand soon after a particular promotion or offer has ended.  Other reasons why people unsubscribe like this include loss of interest in a business or product, page postings are uninteresting and a lack of postings to a brand page.  Getting the most from your social media marketing campaigns, be they on Facebook or another social network, will rely on you being able to keep fans and attract new ones.

Of course it can be difficult to predict the buying behaviour of individuals, marketing tends to rely on demographics to target certain markets and consumers.  And whilst not all promotions or offers you run will interest everyone, keeping your fans interested enough to stay with you will rely on you doing a little homework first.

1. Why did they click the ‘Like’ button in the first place? Look into why people have become fans of your brand in the first place.  Did a large number of fans appear because of a special offer or the promise of a discount?  Identify what it was that brought them in and make sure it forms a part of your Facebook marketing strategy from here on.
2. Encourage interaction: Facebook is a social network which means it is somewhere people can connect and converse with each other.  So get people talking not just to you but amongst themselves as well.  Often this will keep fans engaged with you and attract new people keen to have their say too.  Encourage people to give you reviews and feedback, run competitions and post questions/polls to get fans interacting with you.
3. Offer something exclusive: we all love a great deal and exclusive offers are a great way to get people clicking the ‘Like’ button.  Set up your pages so that people can only access what you have to offer by clicking ‘Like’ and then ensure they receive a discount or exclusive product offer, as well as being able to access your pictures and information.  In a way you are creating a VIP club where only those who have become fans can get access to the offers and deals you have. This feeling of exclusivity will probably get them telling all their friends and spreading the word.
4. Add posts and content: so many businesses set up Facebook pages and then rarely post anything too them.  If this is you then you cannot expect fans to stick with you.  Conversely, a drop off in fan numbers has been noted where businesses post too often, cluttering up fans home pages with updates they are unlikely to be interested in!  Therefore you need to determine how frequently you should post to get the right balance between giving customers just enough information and overloading them.  Monitoring your numbers of fans should give you an indication of just the right level.
5.  Be friendly and personable: add a little of your own personality and those of your staff to your postings.  Customers like to be able to build an identity with businesses they like but in the case of online businesses, social media maybe the only way they get to interact with you.  Include little anecdotes, mark staff birthdays and add photographs and videos to show what you are all about.
6.  Get people sharing: with over 5 million users, Facebook has plenty of potential customers to offer you.  When you first publish your pages ask your friends, family and existing customers to visit your pages and become fans.  This in turn will alert their friends and acquaintances and hopefully begin to bring in more fans.

Article written by Georgina Clatworthy, a freelance author writing on subjects related to social media, marketing and small business. Although I am not connected to www.deluxesocial.com I can recommend them for help with social media marketing that gets results.