Step 4

Grow Followers

Attracting motivated people to like your organization’s Facebook Page can raise your Page’s worth to your entire audience.

How-to invite people you already know

Building an audience on Facebook starts with inviting the people you already know to like your Page. You want to invite people who are inclined to like and interact with what you’re posting. As those people engage with your posts, their Facebook friends will see that and create exposure to new audiences.

Invite Friends

Select the people you want to invite to like your Page, and they’ll get a notification. You’ll want to invite people that are most likely to be genuinely interested in your cause. Ask your staff, board of directors, volunteers and beneficiaries to like and share the Page with their friends. They can also use the invite tool to send invitations directly through Facebook.

Connect to Your Email Contacts

After you set up your Page, you can import your email contacts and send them an invite to like it. Their contact information will remain safe and private. Keep all the people that are already involved with you (like volunteers, donors, staff, beneficiaries and vendors) in mind when inviting others to like your Page.

In-person Invites

If you are having an event, consider creating a way to let attendees know that they can follow your organization’s activities on Facebook. Provide a reason for attendees to seek out your Page after the event.

  • Take photos and let people know they will be posted to your Page. You can tag people in the photos if they’ve allowed photo tagging from their page.
  • Publish a short video recap of the event.
  • Send a follow-up email to attendees with a recap of the event and a link to like your Page on Facebook.
Word Of Mouth

Let people in your network know that you need their help growing your Facebook audience.

  • Ask people to share your Page and like your posts so that you can grow your reach.
  • Provide them with a paragraph they could share with others over email or Facebook to easily recommend to their friends that they check out your Page.
  • Connect with other organizations by liking the Pages of peer organizations with similar audiences.
  • Build your organization’s professional network by tagging other Pages in your posts. This will help more of their supporters learn about your organization and vice versa.
Promote Your Page in Other Places

Let people know you’re active on Facebook through your other marketing channels. Here are some ideas for how you can use those avenues to promote your Facebook Page. Make sure to tell people why it’s important for them to like your Page. Remind them of what you’re trying to accomplish by growing your support base online.

Website

Give the people who visit your website the opportunity to join you on Facebook. Facebook offers a few ways you can integrate Facebook with your website.

Blog

If your organization publishes a blog, you may want to add a Social Plugin such as a Like or Share button to your posts so that people’s interactions will appear on their Facebook profiles.

Email

If you email your supporters with updates, you can also email them to showcase your Facebook Page.

  • Put a link to like your Page in the footer or as a call to action in the body of the email.
  • Include one of your posts as part of the email.
  • Let people know they can join a Facebook group or contact you on Facebook Messenger to get feedback or ask questions more in depth, like exploring volunteer opportunities or discussing program progress.
Social Media

If you have a presence on other social media sites, post to those platforms to let people know that they can also stay in touch with your organization on Facebook. If you have connections with any social media influencers, organizations or businesses with large followings on a platform, you can ask them to share a link to your Facebook Page. You might choose to include suggested text or images to use in order to increase the chance they’ll post.

TIP: You’ll get more people to like your Page if they have a good reason to do so. For example, your donors may be more motivated to like your Page if you tell them it’s a good way to get updates on the impact of their donations.

Reach Outside Your Current Network Using Ads

If you have some budget to work with, you may want to consider using Facebook Ads to reach out to new people on Facebook who might be interested in your cause.

Ad Basics

On Facebook, you can promote a post or send an ad to people based on 100+ different characteristics, including age, gender, location, interests and behaviors. Ads are effective ways to reach new people whom you might not be able to find otherwise. Our targeting capabilities allow you to direct your posts to the people who are most likely to be interested in your organization, and to experiment with publishing posts that resonate with new communities and potential supporters. You can run small tests that are quick and inexpensive to see what type of ads might be cost-effective for you before ramping up to larger campaigns. To get started, visit the Facebook Ads Manager to walk through creating an ad.

Promoted Posts

If you’re a Page admin thinking about getting started with advertising, you can start by boosting posts directly from your Page. Promoted posts are existing posts that you pay to boost so they appear in News Feed for people outside your current audience. Promoted posts show up with a “Sponsored” label below your Page name.

Paid Ads

Paid ads are advertisements you create in the Ad Creation tool. You upload your image, text or graphic, choose your budget and audience, and then publish. When you create ads, they’ll be shown in different areas (placements) on Facebook depending on your objective, audience targeting and image/text choices. Ads can show up in the right column of Facebook or in News Feed on mobile or desktop devices.

For more on how and why to use Facebook Ads for your organization, click here. To learn more about the difference between a boosted post and an ad click here.

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