We’d love to give you a thorough lesson on how to get more “likes” on Facebook – but comedic website The Oatmeal has already done that for us! And it doesn’t take a long lecture or slideshow presentation; it only requires a series of extremely basic comics that boil down the concept to its simplest form, which is just to be more likeable. It sounds so easy, isn’t it?
Here are some of the points made in the comic, which we elaborate upon:
1) Don’t make your entire page about your “like” button. Hopefully you have more interesting content to offer than a bunch of reasons why someone should like you. If your page is designed well, easy to use and informative, then people probably will. They won’t if you beg, plead and cajole. It might look like you care more about yourself than you do the people that you’re hoping to serve, and if there’s one thing we can’t say enough, it’s to think about serving your potential clients and customers first. On Facebook or in real life, this always pays off.
2) Don’t contact everyone you know and ask them to “like” you. It’s not enough to ask to be liked, you have to earn it. People don’t typically enjoy it when you reach out simply for the sake of solicitation. They’ll see straight through that. Instead, you can promote a sweepstakes or post something on your page that would genuinely interest your target audience. Then reach out to them and tell them about that thing. Hopefully, they’ll click “like” just because they want to. Even if you have to offer some kind of incentive to click “like,” people will do it when there’s a benefit for them. And they’ll feel way better about it than if you just said, “Hey, click “like” for me! Thanks!” Give them a real reason.
3) Treat it like meeting a potential friend for the first time in real life. If you were meeting a potential client for lunch, you wouldn’t walk in and say, “Hey, you should like me and give me money!” You wouldn’t do that with a friend or potential romantic interest, either. When you want to impress someone you’re meeting for the first time – especially someone you want something from – then you would be on your best behavior, act respectful and find a way to tactfully bring up your potential partnership. This etiquette should also extend to online.
The Oatmeal closes by listing a bunch of creative ways to draw people to your Facebook business page. But the heart of the matter is that you want to think about your audience and what they’d enjoy reading about. Put this on your Facebook page, and your audience will find the content. Sure, you may need to market your inherent awesomeness a bit before it catches on, but in the end you’ll get an infinitely bigger response than if you’re hoping and praying that people are hitting “like” just because you asked – or worse, begged – them to do it.