That's a really great question. Where do they go? It used to be when someone used the "Suggest to Friends" option on ALL Fanpages, recipients of the suggestion would get a notification on their home page and in their recommended area "Grand Master Flash has suggested you follow The Fly Girls" Fanpage. But no more!
With all of the changes Facebook has put into place in the last two months or so, even I have to stop and think, "where did they move that button?" Unless you are the Administrator of a Fanpage, you no longer can suggest the Fanpages to your friend list. So that sucks for the little guys, who are unable to sink thousands of dollars into branding and marketing campaigns. Suggesting pages to friends was a great way to build your fan base - a million years ago! Well, a million years in Facebook talk is like 9 months.
After my groovy quest to answer my client's question, I stumbled upon all sorts of info about that infamous "Suggest to Friends" option.
When searching Facebook's own help section for WHERE exactly the suggestion might now appear, it states: Suggestions may appear on the home page, in the new user orientation, on the Friends page, and in ad space around the site. To see more Suggestions, click the "See All" link.
That's it. MAY appear. Where's the guarantee that it WILL appear? Well, unless you purchase advertising space, a guarantee is out of the question.
But upon digging just a little more, I find that suggesting a page to your friends may not have been working in the first place... I found a help question on Facebook Help which every complaint was how people were not getting the suggested pages and even if they did not get it, there is no way to UN-suggest them to only retry later. Frustration Nation, I tell you!
Which leads me to:
What can you do to increase the viral potential of your Fanpage and service or product?
How do you get your name out there?
Here's how:Content! Content! Content!
Use the tools available to import your blog, the feed from your website, feeds from your favorite sites, news, tips -- whatever works for you and your fans. Give them what they come to your for. If you're a real estate agent, talk about the market, share info from CNN and Forbes. But keep it fun and interactive -- send your peeps over to the DIY section of the internet and share tips on trimming the rose bushes and repairing a broken drawer. If you're an artist, post your work, share your upcoming events, talk about what inspired you to paint that lovely masterpiece on your easel. The more you post things your current fans like, the more they click the like button, which leaves your Fanpage link on their wall for their friends to see. Jane tells two people, they tell two people, who tell two more and so on.USE Twitter -- even if you don't tweet.
Auto tweet is the key to being there, but not really being there. I am on twitter, and yet I don't have a huge following on my personal twitter account, but my other account, the one I hold for 69 Flavors of Paranoia, has well over 400 fans, and I've done relatively nothing with it. The way I see it, Twitter is there. It's not going anywhere, but I don't have time to Tweet my every move or stay up with the barrage of tweets which pour in every moment. So... I auto tweet. All of the posts I make on Facebook are automatically posted on my Twitter wall. I use Facebook and automatically the same message is posted on my Twitter wall with the right links and my message will be picked up with my key words (for the moment based on what I twittered) and bang. It's there. In cyberland forever -- twice. When a Twitter follower clicks on my auto-posted link to my newest wall photo, it takes them to my Facebook Fanpage Photo Album. Bang. Now they can click like, because it's right there at the top and in the middle of the screen.Everyone has email. Why not use that?!
Email signatures are one of the BEST ways to share your Fanpage link. Every email you send out should have a hard-coded link to your Fanpage, Twitter, Website -- whatever networks you utlize the most. I would suggest no more than four. Another great way to use your email -- Gtalk users - include a link to your Fanpage in your status.Share your own content.
When you post to your Fanpage, bounce back to your PERSONAL page and share the link you just posted to your Fanpage. Once you've shared it, your Fanpage will be Tagged in the post you make to your personal feed. Confused yet? I know, it sounds like gibberish. Take a look atthe pics.
This allows your friends to see you shared a link from your Fanpage and will give them the option to click on your page and like it. Research shows just under 65 million Facebook users are liking things on a daily basis through Facebook. Shouldn't you be taking advantage of that?
Utilize Tagging.
One of the best ways I have found to get your name out there, but not be "spammy" about it, is to talk about events and things in your area of expertise that have pages of their own. When I make a post on YouTube and share that on Facebook, I tag YouTube in the post. So my post, talking about me, from my fanpage will show as a post from my Fanpage on the wall of YouTube. How nifty is that? I am nosy enough, I poke around and click through on the page titles that get my attention, or the pages where a few of my friends all like. Chances are higher, if your friends like it, you'll like it too. If you need help using the Tagging system in Facebook, you can watch my YouTube video explaining how to do it. Granted, this video is about sharing an event, but the principal is the same.That's it in a nutshell.
