We Like This
Facebook is not rocket science, even with all the changes they seem to make on a daily basis. We have simplified the steps to doubling your Facebook Likes in just a few days.
RULE #1: Ask users to like you in the ad.
Give them a reason why. In our case, Weekly World News has plenty of entertaining content about aliens, Michael Jackson, Elvis, you name it. We tried capitalizing the word “LIKE”, writing short versus long copy, testing dozens of images, and trying out different interest targets. Don’t make it complex– keep the language casual, as if a friend was telling you about something cool.
When you have a high click-through rate, Facebook rewards you by decreasing your CPC. As you test out hundreds of ad variations, you’ll inevitably find a couple winners. In this example, we got 631 fan for 95 cents. That’s not a typo. We had a CTR of 0.98% to get 770 clicks. Then 631 of those 770 clicks became fans from within the ad itself (what’s defined as an action).
RULE #2: Send users to your Facebook page.
Don’t send them to your website, which removes the ability to get a like from the ad. If you send them to your website, the like action now means they like the ad, not the page. It’s true that when you send traffic to your page that you no longer have control over the ad headline– it becomes the page name. However, the ability to get fans from the ad is well worth the loss of being able to choose a headline, since the choice of image and targeting are far more important in determining ad effectiveness.
So choose your page title carefully, since it will be your headline from now on.
Read more: Quick tips for Facebook Ads
RULE #3: Create an incentivized LIKE page.
Facebook allows you to show one thing to people who are fans and something else to those who aren’t. So you can say “click like to reveal the exclusive video”. This is a scratch off card, essentially– so use your imagination on what you can do here. What are your fans going to get by hitting the like button?
We found that incentivized like pages got 200-300% higher click to fan conversion rates than regular landing pages. Some people argue that Facebook is going to shut down this technique, because of the practice of incentivized invites from 2 years ago in the app world. Remember when you’d get points in a game for inviting friends or where the results of the “quiz” were revealed to you only when you invited 10 friends? Incentivized liking on your landing page is not the same thing– it doesn’t result in spamming other users.
RULE #4: Do NOT send users to your wall.
This is almost as dumb as sending your Google AdWords traffic to your homepage, as opposed to a PPC landing page. The Wall is the last dozen or so random things that you and your fans have said– it’s just not going to convert. Instead, change your default landing tab to be your incentivized like page. Most users will click “like” to see the special content and then head over to the wall anyway to see what others are saying and how many fans you have. For better or worse, Facebook users judge how trustworthy you are by how many fans you have and how many of their friends are also fans. So jack up your fan count.
You can test conversion rates from different areas of your fan page. In the example below, we had a 19% conversion rate from the wall, versus a 35% conversion rate from the custom tab, prior to supercharging the page with an incentivized like page.
RULE #5: Rotate your ads DAILY
For those folks who are PPC professionals, you’re probably used to the “set it and forget it”. We’ve found CTR to often fall by 50% within 24 hours. The smaller your target, the faster your ads burn out. Remember that Facebook doesn’t have frequency capping or the ability to placement target. So the burden is on you to watch your CTR, even if you’re bidding on a CPC. Just because you might be bidding on a CPC basis, don’t think that you can just ignore your CTR.
Do you have that annoying friend in real life who likes to talk only about his or her favorite subject? You know, the one who no matter what the subject of the conversation is– somehow it goes back to that particular topic? If you don’t keep your ads fresh on Facebook, you’re that very person.
Rule #6: Separate into test and production campaigns
When you multiply ads into a single campaign, it’s easy for a single bad ad to hog up the entire budget. So when you have a group of ads that are performing, place them in a separate production campaign with a high budget, while you test in a low budget campaign. There are no ad groups in Facebook– just ads and campaigns.
Rule #7: Send updates regularly to fans
Most companies just use the wall to communicate, throwing away the massive power of email. Did you know there’s an option in Facebook to “Send an Update to Fans?” This sends a real email, so don’t abuse it. In fact, group this in with your current email marketing campaigns.
We find that a Facebook fan, incidentally, is worth twice as much as an email list subscriber. Why? Almost half of Facebook users log in every day, while email addresses are going dead from spam. Think of building your fan base as a giant list builder with these social options for free.