AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, Amy Porterfield here, and welcome to another edition of the Online-Marketing-Made-Easy podcast. I’m truly happy you’re here. It means a lot so thanks, so much, for listening.
Now, before we dive in, this is an Ask Amy episode so I’m going to take a listener’s question. But, before we dive in I have a huge confession to make that I’m feeling bad about this morning but I just can’t help it. Today Kade, my son, went back to school and I am really happy about that. Does that make me a horrible parent? Because, it’s really the truth.
Here’s the deal: This whole summer he has been obsessed with Minecraft™. And so, he gets on the computer and he loves to use my Mac for this. I don’t know why, he thinks it’s better than his other computer. So he gets on my Mac and he plays Minecraft™ for hours if I let him.
He will bring his friends over and they are all on their own little laptops and that’s all they do and I have to like force them outside to go in the swimming pool, of all things, and go play. And he does that and he enjoys it when I push him outside but if he had his preference he’d be on Minecraft™ like 20 hours a day. It’s crazy.
I am hoping that the Minecraft™ obsession has ended now that school has started (cross your fingers for me, please), but I’m also glad to be back into a routine. I’m a routine kind of girl so I am glad that we now have a specific schedule and that I have a little bit more alone time since I work from home.
So, there’s my confession. If any of you parents can relate hopefully you’re not looking down on me right now thinking I’m terrible, but today is actually a good day.
Anyway, so today is an Ask Amy episode where I take a listener’s question and dive in with a great answer and if you have a question you can actually record one for me. I
would love for you to record a question about Facebook, social media, online marketing, whatever you’ve got, I’d love to hear from you. So you can go to amyporterfield.com/askamy and leave me your question.
Today’s question is from Kathy and I’ll let you listen to it before I dive in:
Hi Amy, it’s Kathy Sacks. Question for you is: I have a Facebook friend profile and I really want to switch it to a page so people can “like” me versus be friends with me but I have somewhere between 500 and, I don’t know, 700 friends and I can’t imagine how long it will take me to get all those folks to “like” my page rather than being friends with me. What’s your advice for someone who is switching over from friend Facebook to more business Facebook and, therefore, want to change it to a business page. Thanks for your answer.
Okay, so this is a question I get asked a lot. But, before I dive in, let’s get on the same page with terminology for Facebook. So, what Kathy is talking about is her profile, her account on Facebook where people request to be her friend. When you sign up for Facebook this is initially what you are setting up, a profile.
It’s also called your personal profile and there are a lot of other names for it but let’s just stick with profile. And then you also can create a Facebook page. Now, your page is open to anyone who wants to connect with you there. They don’t have to request to be a fan or a friend, and you have the option to become a fan of a page or you can just view a page without becoming a fan.
A page is indexed by Google, which is a really good thing so you can show up in search, and you can’t run Facebook ads if you don’t have a page. So, in my opinion, you definitely want a profile and a page.
Now, there are so many different ways that you can go about using your Facebook page in your profile for business. For me, I spend about 99.9 percent of my time on my page meaning I actually rarely post on my profile.
I might change that down the road but it’s really just been working for me where, I teach Facebook marketing, so I really believe that you need to have a very active Facebook page in order to have a solid Facebook marketing plan. So that’s why I put most of my focus there. Now that makes sense for me.
However, for you it might be different. So, for those of you who have had a profile for a long time and you’ve built up a strong friend base there, you might want to spend equal time on both your profile and your Facebook page.
Most people will say that they get much more engagement on their profile than they ever do on their page. And this actually might be true for you. That’s why it might be a good idea to spend equal time on both your page and your profile.
But I’ll say that most people say they get more engagement on their profile because they are spending more time on their profile. If you spend more time on your page posting content, asking questions, answering questions, really engaging, over time you’ll see that you’ll get more engagement on your page as well. Remember, energy flows where energy goes.
Now, before I actually dive into Kathy’s question, I will answer one more question that often comes up when I talk about a profile and a page and that is, “can you post the same content on both?” And, you definitely can.
I think that you might want to mix it up and don’t post it on your profile and page at the exact same time because those who are following both your page and profile might actually see those posts in their newsfeed right on top of each other. I’ve seen it happen many times. It’s not an exact science that that will happen, but it could happen.
What I like to do is mix things up where maybe in the morning I’ll post about my podcast on my page and then maybe that afternoon I’ll post about it on my profile. But you can post the same information.
What I tend to suggest is that on your profile, you want to be more personal. You want to post maybe more about your family, family vacations, and different things that are going on in your life on a personal side and then, once in a while, post about your business.
On your Facebook page, also known as a business page, that’s where most of the conversation can be around your brand and around your niche and business and all that good stuff as long as you are offering value and not just promoting all the time. And then, once in a while, throw in a little personal as well to connect with your audience on that level.
It’s so funny because every time I throw a little personal into my business page is when I get most of the engagement. So, it’s a good reminder to definitely show your human side regularly on your business page or your “page” as much as, you know, definitely do it on your profile as well. Just know that you probably have a really good mix of friends and possible prospects on your Facebook profile. That’s why it is important that you mix things up a bit.
Now, getting back to Kathy’s question. She is asking:
How do I actually get my Facebook friends on my profile to come over to my Facebook page?
Now, the short answer is that there is no foolproof way to move your friends over to your fan page. There are a few things you can try and I’ll go over those things with you but I want to encourage you not to spend too much time trying to move your friends over to your Facebook page. Instead,
I would encourage you to spend more time on developing your page, the content, the engagement, your list-growing strategy, all of that can be done on your page.
So, Kathy, I don’t want you to spend too much time on this strategy although I am going to give you some helpful tips to kind of get you started to make that transition. I understand that if you are growing a Facebook page you want to build your fan base quickly and it makes sense to start with the friends on your profile since they seem to have an interest in what you are posting. So I get the logic there, it’s just that it doesn’t happen as though we think it should.
One thing you want to think about is this: Are those friends that you have on your profile genuinely interested in your business? Some of them likely are but definitely not all of them are.
The thing is 1) most people won’t make the effort to click “like” if you tell them, “Hey, I’m on my Facebook page now,” if you post this on your profile, “come over to my Facebook page.” If that’s all you post, likely most people aren’t going to pay attention.
In addition, some of them just aren’t interested in hearing from you from a business perspective. So that’s why I just want to caution you, likely on your profile you have a mix of people that are friends or just want to know you personally and have no interest in what you are doing for business. So, just remember that.
In my experience, moving friends to fans is a slow process that is rarely a raving success. So that’s why I don’t want you to spend too much time in this area. However, I will say, it is worth an effort to give it a shot. Do it and then move on to bigger and better things which I am going to tell you about in a moment.
However, I did promise you a few things that you can implement to build your new fan page with your existing friend base from your profile.
- So the first suggestion I have for you is make sure that you link your profile and your page. If you don’t know how to do this already, I made you a short how-to video in the show notes. So you just go to amyporterfield.com/37 and I’m going to walk you through a quick video to show you how to link your profile and your page so if somebody comes to your profile they can easily click a link right there on that timeline and go over to your Facebook page and like it. There’s a tricky part of this that it doesn’t work for everybody so I have to show you a quick workaround so that’s why I wanted to make you a how-to video to show you how to do that. But that’s the Number One thing that I think everybody should be doing, linking your profile to your page.
- For about two weeks I encourage you to start a campaign where you are actively promoting your page on your profile. What this means is that you’re telling people that you are now posting regularly on your Facebook page about (you fill in the blank there) and that you would love for them to come over and become a fan. Tell them to click “like” though. Give them an action so that you can actually stay in touch with them in the news feed. Now I will say that this Tip #2, you know, starting this campaign to actively move people over, maybe every few days you want to post about your Facebook page on your profile, that’s really not enough. You need to take it one step further and give them a reason why they should come over to your Facebook page. My good friend, James Wedmore, did this when he first created his Facebook page. I remember he was in my kitchen and we were setting up his Facebook page, which is crazy because it wasn’t that long ago that he didn’t have a Facebook page, so it’s never too late to start because James has been in business forever; but, he was using his profile a lot but he wanted to use Facebook ads. So he started is Facebook page. He made a short video telling people, “hey there, I’ve finally jumped on the bandwagon, I have a Facebook page, and I want you to come over because this is what I’m doing over there.” And, I think in the video, he talked about a free giveaway or some kind of freebie to get them to want to actually click the link, go to the Facebook page, and click “like.” So I encourage you to take things to the next level, possibly think about a video. If you’re not comfortable with that at least do some kind of promotion or giveaway on your page for probably a series of two weeks just to get people to come over. You’ve got to give them a reason why. The thing is, most people are not going to pay attention if you just tell them to come over to your page. But, if you tell them what’s in it for them and you create a benefit they’ll pay attention. So I suggest giving away a book, maybe, related to your brand or maybe a program or a product that you have; something completely aligned with your brand so that the people that are interested in that giveaway are going to be genuine prospects for you. I always say giving away a shiny iPad is not the best idea sometimes because anybody would like the iPad but not everybody would want my Facebook marketing program. But, if they do then they are a perfect fit for my audience. See how that works? So, a giveaway is a great way to go that extra step and actually attract the friends on your profile that are genuinely interested in your business.
Now, as I said, I would not spend too much time on any of these tips I just gave you. You know, create maybe your giveaway, a quick video. Do that for about two weeks and then move on from this strategy. If you have a Facebook page with less than 500 fans I’m sure that you want to grow that Facebook fan base quickly.
If you want to do that and you try this friend strategy, moving the friends over to a profile, and let’s say you maybe get 100 people to come over. Well, at that point, what I would encourage you to do is use Facebook “like” ads and not for a long time and not for a lot of money either. I would spend maybe $100 to $200, if you can afford that, on Facebook “like” ads to grow your fan base.
You can usually get a fan for 50¢ or 60¢, that’s not a promise, it’s just kind of a good benchmark to look for, and use these “like” ads to attract quality fans to your Facebook page. I’ll post in the show notes a “like” ad example just so you can see what I’m talking about in terms of what a “like” ad looks like. But, you can set it up in the power editor or the Facebook ads dashboard, but a “like” ad basically is an ad in the newsfeed that has a button to like your Facebook page.
I use them regularly when I want a boost in my fan base when I’m going to do a new promotion or campaign. I don’t think you should spend a lot of money on it. I don’t think you should spend a lot of time on that either. But, it is worth, let’s say, two weeks of trying out this strategy.
I think once you get to 500 fans, that’s a pretty solid audience and from there that’s when I would shift gears. And what I mean by shifting gears is that at that point I would stop focusing on growing your fan base and worrying about your friends coming over as your fan base and really focusing on turning fans into leads because turning fans into leads is what is most important in terms of your Facebook marketing plan. So, again, once you have a strong following, let’s say around 500 people, I would switch gears and start turning those fans into leads.
I have a seven-step process. You might have heard me talk about it before, I pretty much only talk about this seven-step process when we’re talking about Facebook and growing an e-mail list. So, I already went through all seven steps in Episode #28.
If you go to amyporterfield.com/28, one of my most popular podcast posts, you can learn more about all of these seven steps and I included a little free giveaway where I have a guide of each seven steps and what’s included. So, that’s Episode #28 if you want to take things to the next level because I don’t want you spending too much time in this area of fan growth and friends and fans and all that good stuff. There’s more powerful things you can do on Facebook, even with a small fan base.
So, there you have it. Thank you so much, Kathy, for your excellent question and I hope you found my response valuable.
Again, everything I talked about in this show including the How-To Video to link your profile to your page and that image of the “like” ad can be found at amyporterfield.com/37 and I have one more quick little free giveaway.
I’m full of freebies today, I think! So, one more quick little giveaway. And I wanted to tell you, the most popular questions I get asked most often are about which tools do I use and which resources do I use to grow my online business because there’s definitely some tools I couldn’t live without in terms of growing my e-mail list and getting more traffic to my website and building up my presence and my impact online.
Because you took the time to listen to my podcast and, hopefully you’re a fan of the podcast and you come back regularly, I wanted to kind of pay it forward and give you a great free resource. I’ve been working on it for a while now, this is the first time I’ve mentioned it and it’s free, of course.
You can go to amyporterfield.com/tools and you can get this free copy where I pretty much give you a comprehensive list of all the tools that I use regularly to grow my online business and keep it operating and I have a pretty small budget I use in terms of running my business so these things aren’t very expensive and, if you know me at all, you know I’m not really a techy kind of girl so they’re not that complicated either.
Some of them are a little bit more than others but I like to keep things pretty simple and streamlined so you will find some great resources in that document, amyporterfield.com/tools.
So there you have it. I have gone through a lot of links and resources and freebies and all that stuff in this episode so don’t worry, if you’re confused at all, every single thing I’ve mentioned can be found at amyporterfield.com/37. You’ll get all the links that you need, all the images, videos, everything there.
Thank you, so much, for listening. I am delighted that you’re here and I cannot wait to talk to you again soon. Take care.
