During the height of Facebook’s popularity, a single post had the potential to reach millions of users. Businesses and brands all flocked to Facebook and quickly grew their following.
Today, because Facebook changed its algorithm, your posts won’t likely reach as many. This algorithm underscores the company’s core, which values friends and family connections being above anything else. Thus, your posts now will not reach all your existing followers anymore and certainly not everyone on Facebook if you want to gain new ones.
Does that mean you should stop growing your Facebook channel?? Not at all. You can still reach your existing followers and attract new ones by extending your connection beyond Facebook.
One way you can do that is by getting your audiences’ email and continuing the conversation in your mailboxes.
Here are 12 smart ways to grow your email list with Facebook Marketing in 2018.
1. Use Facebook Live to turn viewers into subscribers
Use Facebook Live to build your list by inviting your viewers to subscribe to your newsletters or blogs.
Humans are visual creatures and most prefer video over a text content. The rise of video marketing alone proves that videos are effective in attracting people.
Attract viewers with a live feed, hook them with your content and dangle opt-in offers to convert them into email subscribers.
Using live video to engage with your audience can also help you grow your Facebook followers. Engagement can lead to follower growth so aim to regularly connect with your audience and encourage them to interact with you through live videos.
Here is an example of a Facebook Live video by Michael Phelps who frequently updates his fans through the feature.
https://www.facebook.com/michaelphelps/videos/10154566669056247/
You can also build your following by buying Facebook followers. A massive number of followers can establish you as an authority in your niche. So, having plenty of followers— even if they’re not real, will make you appear like an authority and in itself will help you attract real followers.
2. Add a signup widget on your page
Add a website functionality to your Facebook page with a signup widget. On Facebook, these widgets are also called apps and they are easier to install than their website counterparts. A simple search where you can pull up and select the app you want to add to your page will do the trick.
Make it easy for your viewers to subscribe to your newsletters by adding a signup widget. Below is an example of the widget and how it will look on your Facebook page.
Image credit: Robly
3. Pin a post with a link to your sign up page
Pick one of your favorite posts and pin it on top of your page. Make sure that post contains a sign up link for your website and a snippet of what awaits them should they sign up.
4. Create a sign-up form page on your Facebook
On your Facebook page, create a signup tab where you can easily refer your audience. You can include an invitation to go to the tab in any of your calls-to-action, whether on Facebook posts and videos, outside of the platform or in your Facebook ads.
5. Join groups to engage with
Facebook has lots of groups and subgroups you can join and network with. Use this opportunity to promote your brand and collect email addresses via subscriptions.
You can even create your own group and lure your followers and other users to join! Groups are captured markets that can be a gold mine for lead generation and email list-building.
6. Use Facebook Ads
Run Facebook lead ads to capture email addresses of your audiences. You can also customize the form to add any information to help you profile your market and make better ads.
Make the whole process trouble-free for them by using Facebook’s pre-filled forms feature. The pre-filled form draws information from supplied information by the viewer on his profile and pre-fills fields automatically.
These are the available pre-filled fields on the platform.
Image credit: Facebook Business
7. Leverage Facebook Custom Audience
Target your existing customers by creating a Custom Audience list on Facebook. Custom Audience on Facebook is a list of your customers from your own data, compared by Facebook to their own data of users, to help you find them on the platform.
This technically won’t grow your email list since the Custom Audience makes up customers you already have email addresses of. However, Facebook can help you expand that list by fine-tuning your ads for you according to the demographics on your list.
8. Run a contest and make signing up a criterion for entry
Image credit: SproutSocial
Contests are an exciting way to grow your audience, not just for the participants, but also for yourself! Run exciting contests where one of the criteria for entry would be to sign up for your newsletters.
It’s a fun and easy way to build both your Facebook presence and your email marketing list.
Here is an example of a Facebook contest that makes email a requirement to join
Image credit: wishpond
9. Give an incentive for signing up
Make it an easy decision for people to sign up for your newsletters by giving them something in return for their time and their email address!
Incentives don’t have to be expensive but they should be valuable. Are your users programmers? Maybe you can give free themes for their websites. Are they life coaches? Give them a free video of your training tips or a free ebook. Make it worth their while and make it irresistible.
10. Share a teaser of your newsletter
Share a small part of your newsletter on your Facebook to entice people to view the entire thing.
For better results, pair your post with an image. Posts with pictures receive the highest engagement on Facebook. So make sure you catch their attention with a picture and hold it with the content.
The more engagement you receive, the more people you’ll reach with your post. This is why engagement is particularly important on Facebook. Facebook values likes, comments, and shares, and pushes popular posts up the News Feed for more exposure.
So, if you want to reach new audiences and build a stronger following, don’t ignore your engagement. Buy Facebook likes to create a social proof for your brand.
Social proof is the unseen force that makes people do what others are doing. So, even if your likes are bought, the mere number of likes that reflects on your post can convince people of the goodness of your products and services. The number becomes your social proof that may help people to like your post too.
11, 524 people can’t be wrong, after all.
Image credit: Add This Academy
11. Upload a Facebook video with a sneak preview of an exclusive content
Are you launching a new product? Offer to give a first look and create a kind of exclusivity that will make people want to head over to your site and give up their email.
You can also offer to send the video to their mail which will make it logical for you to ask for their email addresses.
Keep Connecting With Your Facebook Followers!
Facebook is still one of the best ways to reach your targeted market. Use it to your advantage not only because it’s the new Google for people looking for local and community brands, but also because you could use its 2 billion monthly active users to build a solid email marketing list to further grow your brand and remain relevant in your industry!
Good luck!
Image credit: The Mary Sue
