As the social media marketing snowball grows, it is becoming increasingly important for brands of all shapes and sizes to not only have a Facebook page, but also to ensure that page maximises its fan base in as many ways as possible.

The issue with fan pages is that they can be a double edged sword. If you look after them then they will become an effective and important part of a company’s marketing strategy - not only do they provide a core customer base in which to market, but they can also give invaluable feedback from customers and enable a way for brands to converse with them in an informal, friendly way which is unique to Facebook.

However, if the page is allowed to grow stagnant, this can be detrimental to the brand, as potential customers coming to the page would associate uninteresting, out-of-date content with the rest of the company in question.

So what techniques can we use to give fan pages the best chance of recruiting the largest amount of fans available? Well, here are a few pointers:

Populate with relevant, interesting content
There is absolutely no point in setting up a page and then using it to spam however many fans you may have with boring promotions that will not engage people in the slightest. The only effect this will have is to actually decrease the fan base - no-one wants their newsfeed cluttered up with irrelevant, pushy marketing promotions. Another tactic that brings about the opposite effect to which it originally intended is the automatic news update, such as an RSS feed. Facebook users generally don’t appreciate syndicated feeds - organic, humanly updated content is far more popular.

Instead, brands need to think about what would garner attention and add value for their fans. This could be anything related to their company or the industry in general, information that would be useful, interesting or just funny. Ideally the content would be good enough to encourage people to share with other friends and initiate some virality. The better the content, the more fans you’ll get onto your page.

Update regularly, but don’t overdo it
Brands need to ensure that not only is there decent content on their page, but that the content is frequently added to. The idea is to get fans visiting your page habitually, getting them used to looking at new content and commenting / interacting with it. If this doesn’t happen, interactions will drop fast, fan numbers will grind to a halt and momentum will be lost. It takes a lot to get the ball rolling again, so it is imperative that this practice is kept up.

On the other side of the coin, pages that are updated too often run the risk of annoying fans by clogging up their news feed, even if the content is good enough to be included on the page. In such cases, fans would be tempted to de-fan the page in order to remove this irritation. Therefore a balance needs to be found so that both extremes are avoided.

Take part in the conversation
So, you’ve got a healthy stream of people coming to your page and posting up comments, thoughts and questions. Now what? To take your fan page to another level, respond to them. Facebook users love it when a brand engages with its consumers - communication is what social networking is all about and this method of interaction gives a modern, real and more human face to the brand. It’ll encourage fans to visit the page far more regularly, give them another reason to invite their own friends to became fans of the page and add a feel good factor to the whole experience.
Questions can be answered, criticisms can be responded to and company news can be mentioned - customers will be given the impression (rightly hopefully!), that the brand does care and is listening.

There are many more tips and tricks that can be employed to push a fan page into the stratosphere, but if I carried on I’d be here forever. However these are a few standard methods that should really give your page a helping hand. Get in touch with your thoughts!