When Eric Jackson of Jackson Kayak first came to me, his dilemma was a simple. He had a great story to tell and an awesome product, but felt their social presence was a ways behind the competition. So with that, Eric and his team handed over the reigns and tasked us with building creative campaigns to reach the base they knew was there, and to grow their audience. So we put our heads down and got to work.

The results were outstanding. In just three short months Jackson separated themselves from the pack and now has a larger fan base than any other kayak manufacture. We put together a deck highlighting our journey, the results, and best practices.

Here are eight actionable steps you can take towards building a stronger presence on Facebook.

1. You aren’t reaching your fans

Most pages aren’t reaching a very high percentage of their fans. If you already have a decent fan base, focus on reaching them before you shift your focus to growing your audience. *Maybe slip in how to measure the percentage of fans you are reaching? (Unique organics / fans)

2. How do you reach more fans

Facebook has an algorithm called edgerank that hides a significant portion of your updates from your fans. In order to increase visibility, you simply need to increase engagement.

Ways to do that:

Caption Contest
Multiple Choice
Fill-in-the-blank
Inspirational Quotes

*Use photos in status updates. Not only does visual content naturally do well, edgerank prefers it.

3. Be creative and think outside the box

Use the cover photo spot. Ask users to upload their photos in a specific category. They are consciously (or subconsciously) participating in an ego contest. For Jackson Kayak, once we posted the finalists, folks would scramble to rack up likes by sharing and tagging. We’ve done this with quite a few clients and it has been a very successful growth campaign. On the outset we planned it as an engagement campaign, but what we didn’t expect was the tagging. Tagging sends a direct notification to people and their curiosity takes them back to our FB page. In order to interact with the photo they are tagged in, they have to like the fan page. You get the picture. (pun intended)

4. Once you engage, your numbers will increase

But are they the right numbers? Make sure you know the right metrics to look for, and that those numbers are helping you reach your goals. Do you want to increase website traffic, sales?

5. Make sure your fans are consuming your content

So you know how many fans you have, you know how many you are reaching, you know how many you are engaging. But do you know how many people are consuming your content?

IMO one of the most overlooked metrics is consumptions.

6. Consumptions = success

This means your status updates are not only engaging, but people are actually interested in what you are sharing with them. This is also usually a good indicator of web referrals.

7. Growing your audience

How much does a fan cost? It’s very hard to say, though some have tried to come up with an average. The better question is how much is a fan worth? Only you know that – but once you get your base engaged and consuming, you should have a better idea.

8. Sweepstakes

Lots of pages do them. The biggest reason is they are cost effective in relation to advertising. But they are only beneficial if you can attract the right kind of fan. iPad’s are awesome, but do they gel with your brand?

Make sure you incentivize the share.

Take it up a notch. What is something that you have that fans can’t get anywhere else? We had Eric Jackson – one of the biggest superstars in the sport. We not only gave away a kayak, we gave away a trip to paddle with EJ for the day. Boom goes the dynamite!

Need help implementing your strategy? Drop us a line, we would love to connect.