I was always a doubter when it came to using Facebook to promote a blog. I’m not sure why – but despite my best efforts I couldn’t seem to get Facebook to ‘work’ as well as I could with Twitter when it came to engaging readers, driving traffic and building community.
However in the last few months things have changed – Facebook has become HOT for me, at on my photography blog.
I’m pretty sure it’s more about how I’m using Facebook than any particular change at Facebook but I’ve started to see it become a lot more useful in a few ways including driving traffic (see chart below), increasing reader engagement and building brand. Here’s the traffic from facebook over the last 13 months (click to enlarge):
There were always a few days of spiked traffic (usually when we did a post that went a little viral) but the last 6 or so weeks we’ve seen a nice up swing in traffic).
All the action happens on the Digital Photography School Facebook page where the bulk of what happens is simply us pulling in new posts from the blog as status updates using the ‘Networked Blogs’ application – however in the last few months we’ve also started to try a little more reader engagement. Here’s what’s worked:
1. We Ask Questions
The best thing that we do (and I have my forum administrator help with dPS facebook page so it literally is a ‘we’) is simply asking questions of those who ‘like’ us on Facebook. Every day or two we pose a simple question that asks readers either for
- their opinion on some aspect of photography
- to share an experience that they’ve had
- to tell us something about the photography gear that they use
- to do something fun
These simple questions go crazy. Some examples include:
- What was the focal length of your last shot?
- Behind Every Good PHotographer there’s…..
- What did you photograph this weekend?
Interestingly when we ask the same questions on Twitter (where we have 1000 more followers than we have ‘likes’ on Facebook) we only get 10 or so answers to our questions where on Facebook we get hundreds (we’ve had as many as 700). The fact that Facebook allows our followers to see each others responses and that it’s less fleeting than Twitter is an advantage for this type of thing.
2. Promoted ‘Hot Facebook Status Updates”
When we have one of these question status updates/discussion going on Facebook we try to get more traffic to it from other sources. This largely happens in two ways:
- Weekly Newsletter – in our weekly email newsletter we’ve been linking to one facebook discussion a week as a ‘hot on facebook’ link.
- Twitter – because the ‘conversational aspect of facebook’ is so great I’ve started to tweet when there’s a good discussion going. It might seem odd to promote one social media account on another but it’s led to significant increases in interaction.
The benefit of highlighting what’s going on on our Facebook page has been two fold – firstly it boosts the numbers of responses to the questions we ask significantly.
Secondly it’s led to a big increase in the number of people who ‘like’ our pages. We’ve gone from several thousand connections on our facebook page to over 27,000 in a couple of months.
3. Reader Involvement in Shaping the Site
Every Friday morning as I’m scheduling posts on the blog for the weekend I ask the same question on Facebook. The question asks readers to suggest a theme for our weekend photography challenge (something we run each week on the blog where we name a theme and everyone goes away and takes a picture to come back and share relating to the theme).
We get a lot of great suggestions in this weekly thread of conversation and the added bonus is that it builds a little anticipation for the challenge itself.
Another thing I did last week was create a survey for our facebook friends that asked them some questions about the content that they’d like to see on dPS. Over 600 people took the survey from facebook giving us some amazing insights into topics for future posts.
4. Promotions
We recently launched a Travel Photography eBook on dPS and saw some really positive response from our promotional efforts on Facebook. I’ve never seen much success with ‘selling’ on Facebook before but this time around we built some pre-launch buzz on the facebook page and released it to our facebook community before anyone else.
Our best conversions did come from email promotion but Facebook was probably our 2nd most effective place of promotion this time around. We did some status updates about it but also sent direct messages to all of those who have ‘liked’ our page.
5. Landing Page
This is very new – but I’ve recently added a ‘welcome’ landing tab for those arriving on our page who have not been there before and ‘liked’ it (I’ve also added it to the ProBlogger Facebook Page).
The idea here is to create a tab (using the FBML application) which is a customized greeting page for new people to your page. The page directs people to the ‘like’ button and sells benefits of making the connection. Next time they arrive on the page they are taken to the ‘wall’ tab and don’t see the welcome (Facebook allow you to set this up in the ‘page’ settings.
It’s too soon to tell what impact it is having but in talking to a few other web publishers this has seen significant increases in connections.
I’ve also seen others add other things in such a page including welcome videos, email newsletter subscription forms and other things that help them achieve some kind of ‘conversion’. The FBML application lets you add pretty much any html to the tab. I’ve so far just used an image file but hope to convert it to live html with links in it in the coming weeks.
Update: due to many people asking for more information on how I created my landing pages – I’ve just written an update of this post looking at how to create a facebook landing page for your blog.
What are You Doing that is Working on Facebook?
I feel like I’m still finding my way with the use of Facebook and am still experimenting with different aspects of it. We have a ‘tab’ for our eBooks which I’m not sure is overly effective, I want to find a way to get our readers sharing photos better and I’m sure I could be promoting our newsletter better – but it’s one of those things where I find experimenting with one thing at a time is best.
What are you doing with facebook that is working (or that isn’t)?
PS: I’m pretty sure that facebook is not a site that will work for every topic. For example on the ProBlogger facebook page we’ve not seen the same sorts of results – for ProBlogger Twitter seems better. I’ve heard from a few other bloggers mixed results including some amazing stories of increases in traffic.
Also worth noting is that earlier this year I made a significant change in the way that I used Facebook when I defriended around 4800 friends and made my personal facebook profile purely for personal friends and family and concentrated all of my facebook efforts on creating ‘fan pages’/’pages’ for each of my blogs. This was the best thing I’ve done on facebook and released me to develop the pages and use my personal account to build friendships and connections with real life friends.
Update: I’ve just written an update of this post looking at how to create a facebook landing page for your blog.
Hi Darren,
How do you deleted more than 4000. You paying someone else to do it or is it some software you’re using. Please let us know.
Great info in this post. You never amazed me,bro.
Thanks.
This is such a nice landing page on a fan page..kudos to the creator!
This is very interesting. I might consider utilizing Facebook to drive traffic much more in the future to my other sites which are more appropriate for these kind of things.
You have some interesting strategies to promote sites on facebook. Personally I’ve tried doing so in the past, however I found it near impossible. Perhaps I will see more success with your advice. Thanks!
I am totally agrey with Rocky that Facebook advert very easy to use but low CTR. I have applied personally
I had a baseball blog I was promoting with facebook. I never got a lot of traffic but its fun to see what fans you get. I had a couple of sports talk guys fan my page. Sadly I don’t think they ever mentioned me on the radio.
I’m going to try this facebook thing for my company….Do i just set up a business/fan page………..I have a fair few mates on there and didn’t want some of them have acess to my contact info on my website
I liked the idea to ask the readers to come up with new ideas. It is really not an easy task to select, write and tune a new post; and after publishing if the post fails to get the required attention, it really hurts a lot.
But if we get the feed-before from our readers, we not only satisfy our existing readers but also convert the news ones into loyal readers.
Thanks for these helping tips, much appreciated.
http://www.mobile-geeks.com
Hi Darren,
How Darren, how do you send DM’s to everyone who “likes” your page?
Do you send them one by one??
Katie.
@tripbase
Hi Darren,
How do you send DM’s to everyone who “likes” your page?
Do you send them one by one??
Katie.
@tripbase
My biggest problem with my FB page marketing is the lack of interaction with the blog itself. People might click a link but it seems they keep the discussion on the FB page itself and not in the comments on the blog. I feel like FB users just like interacting on FB and not on any other pages.
Very good post for us facebook users. Great insight on how to fully utilize facebook and its tools. Clearly it can be a great asset for business if it is properly utilized. Good post
I think this advice will be very helpful to anyone trying to gain a good following for their blog using Facebook. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Making this a part of my weekly plan. Thanks Darren.
Thanks for the great post. It actually helped me…traffic is the most important piece to the puzzle. If a site doesnt have traffic..its not even a site.
I’m using facebook for a while but not able to get any traffic i think i need to work hard on making a big list of friends on facebook to get some traffic.
Hi Darren,
We’re finding that our readers prefer to “join” a group, which we are test driving along side the Fan page. Any thoughts on this? We hope we can switch them to the Fan page and will adopt some of your great suggestions. Being in the photography niche, we’ll be watching you closely. Thanks again for another great post!
I will try Facebook for the first time to see what happens. I hope to have the same “luck” than you. I really need it.
Thanks, this is a good motivation to do it..Finally. I will do an essay if I have success. Jjejeje.
Good night.
This is a great article. Lately I have been seeing connect to facebook on a lot of sites that I visit online. The one that I see just about everyday is the one on inboxdollars every time I click the email and go to their site I see it at the top of the page. Facebook is just about everywhere these days.
I was just saying to someone the other day that it seems like everyone and their momma has a facebook page.
It’s the place to visit if you want to keep up with your friends and family. I think it might even get bigger then myspace LOL!
Hey darren,
very promising to hear about Facebook and the opportunities it yield.
I have just recently started a twitter ‘fan page’ for my blog and it sure is slowly picking up. I have good vibes for it ;)
I haven’t had the sort of ‘exposure’ yet to set up a facebook fan page although i personally feel that facebook’s are much more sophisticated in many ways when it comes to making money online today.
I will be most likely to try it out someday when i have gain enough exposure…but the ‘landing page’ part for facebook is really new to me. I never knew it was possible =)
therefore, thank you very much for that.
have a great day,darren
I consider when everyone realizes that Encounter Fact is now to publicizing what Steve Jobs was to the fact business, they’ll get on display with it. Besides, what is exceed then express of mouth advertising for gregarious proofing?
Hey Darren,
another informative post, but i’ve just not quite mastered using Facebook to drive good traffic to my Blog. Maybe thats one side i’ll have to work on for a few days to get that going
Stuart
Hi Darren,
I too have not had much success with my facebook fan page, well none actually, more my fault, never really understood the power of facebook. Did you know that if Facebook was a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world. It woke me up.
Pete
What am I doing that is working on Facebook… Well, I just created a page a day ago so nothing is really working yet. Those are great ideas for when you already have fans. I’m at the stage of looking for fans right now.
I am a fan of the company called Netfirms. They offer fun stuff on their page. They offer cheap domains (sometimes as low as $1.99) and they have a “Win an iPad” contest. If you become a fan you have a chance to win. The latest version goes like this: they randomly pick two winners and each of those winners will then get to nominate one other Netfirms fan to win. So this encourages people to invite their friends instead of keeping the contest to themselves ;)
p.s. I don’t work for them! But their strategies have worked with me so I thought I’d share.
I’ve had mixed results with Facebook. I sometimes post articles on the blog to drive people to a discussion on Facebook – fundamentally I’ve not got enough people liking the page.
I’ve tried including the facebook like box on my blog to get more likes, but I for some reason it posts an extract of the page and not the ‘fans’.
I don’t know, I tried it for my blog. I guess the FacebookPage thing only works if you are an established blog with loyal readers, like your photography blog and problogger.net.
However, I did get inspired by your post! I wrote a series of articles on how you can adjust your FacebookPage more effectively to your advantage!
Yay! Thanks for the inspiration.
i was also using facebook to share my articles but the response was not good but your ideas really working.Thanks for sharing
Great Information Darrren. I have been looking for ways to drive traffic with Facebook. I am going to implement some of these strategies right away!
Hi Darren
Intresting Article, Yes I agree, I think the Facebook fan page is an under used tool that many small businesses don’t know about. If you become a authority within your niche and give good valued advice look you do then this is why you page is now going viral, people coming to you looking for answers.
all the Best
Thanks for the post. I’m always interested in getting traffic and i probably wouldn’t have thought of doing things like linking twitter to facebook but if it works!
I just started my blog, which discusses the trials of being a young writer in addition to offering literary resources for aspiring authors, a few weeks ago. Now that I’ve accumulated a couple weeks of posts and finally reached an acceptable aesthetic, I’m starting to promote. I can’t tell you how helpful this article and others on this site have been!
Has anyone created a Facebook fan page for their blog? I want to keep my personal Facebook personal, but I feel so laughably cocky making a fan page… = Also, what about formspring as a forum for questions? It’s kind of a step in between Facebook and twitter, with an option for anonymous questions– does anyone have experience in using formspring in conjunction with a blog? I’ve seen it done, but am unsure of its effectiveness.
I have the same issue with facebook. I think the asking questions thing seems pretty basic but it would help interaction. Man, you do amazing work!
Hi,
I’ve always marveled at the impact and potential of Facebook. In fact, I think it’s still in its infancy in creating more business opportunities for online marketing.
I do disagree with their ways of invading privacy but I think Darren mentioned a very good point that is to seperate the private personal account and create fan page instead for business purposes. That way, we can fully utilize the responsive FB users.
Thanks for sharing some of the strategies to get better readers experience and increase conversion. Great work! Am very inspired.
Cheers,
Ming Jong
you are right. Facebook traffic is now almost equal to google. So it definitely useful to use these tips to drive traffic to a website or blog.
So there is more to Facebook that just streaming the rss of blog?
yes indeed.
really like the landing page using FBML – very cool
And the newsletter.
Facebook is such a hotbed of different people sharing stuff, get it right and you have thousands more readers. Still – facebook (and more so – twitter) has a way of swallowing up your posts before someone can see them – the trick is to find the optimum time to share.
Thanks for sharing this! Yes, question updates really do get the most interaction and compare to Twitter, I say Facebook is a bit more personal and a relationship is more likely to build up as well.
I run a blog that is all about the latest and greatest deal to be found and facebook status updates and twitter have both worked very well in drivig traffic to my blog. Let’s face it, these deals don’t last long many times so it is imperative to have a platform in which to get the word out there so to speak in order to allow readers to take advantage of the deals.I have found that facebook works well with HOTdeals and twitter just simply drives a kinda steady flow of traffic no matter if the deal is HOT or not.
I currently am not using FaceBook to much but your post has got me to thinking. I have been searching for ways to increase some of my traffic and this sounds like an excellent way to do that. Thanks for all the helpful tips.
What I can’t find in here is how to link to one individual wall post/update. How does that work?
Thanks for this article, you have given some great ideas on how to engage people on FaceBook. I love the medium, but have not really explored how to fully embrace it, until now. I see ways that I can make it better and that is what its all about.
The timing of this post was perfect! I just started a design history blog, and created a fan page for it last night. Since design history a pretty specialized niche I know I face challenges in building an audience, but with all those eyeballs on Facebook I’m sure that having a fan page will increase my chances of being seen. Your post is great. The most helpful suggestion was: “Number One” ask questions. That’s what social media is all about isn’t it, engaging readers in conversation?
Wow, thanks a lot for this post. I tried a couple of times to get into Facebook for the sole purpose of building a brand. But I couldn’t get past the interface (the first time), the second time I lost momentum.
I think I will try it again sometime, soon. Thanks Darren!
Awesome tips. Definitely a great “refresher” … when things get stale.
I am always trying to find the balance between using Facebook for personal reasons or business. I don’t want to turn my friends away by making it too business oriented, but would like to incorporate a bit of business into it while still keeping everyone captivated.
I believe Facebook used to be a good tool for driving traffic to your blog or website. Keywords used to be. Now there are a million and one “fan” pages out there, and many more created every day. They are creating those ridiculous Like pages with outside applications and there is no point to them. They’re more of a spam on my home feed “Nick Likes __, ___, and 22 other pages.”
Also, many businesses are turning to Facebook, causing even more of a fan page congestion.
How do you plan to get your page out there and stand out from all those other pages?
My blog is called In Bed With Married Women, so a lot of people who find it on FB think it’s a site to hook up with married chicks (uh….no). Not sure if I think “yuck” or “hey, it’s another fan.”
jill
In Bed With Married Women
http://inbedwithmarriedwomen.blogspot.com
I am relatively new to the facebook way of drawing traffic and I guess this post shows the right way. Thanks again for writing such a useful post. I needed that.
I lost the point. How would posting a Question on Facebook or Twitter create more traffic for a website/blog site ?
How does the ‘posted question’ pull traffic on to your site ?
I can only envision a person answering the question right on Facebook without any reason to go further.
Could you please elaborate on this.
Thank You
Great Blog Great Post
Great article. I just started promoting with Facebook. I have had a few direct referrals from them.
Posting a question spikes peoples interest. I see the same thing when I ask questions on my FaceBook rather than making statements. As far as web design business, FaceBook is my top referral source. Twitter not so muck. I think this is because I am able to be more interactive on FaceBook compared to twitter.