Great post as you have inspired me to set aside an hour tomorrow to get ours going again.

The last time we had a page set up for our site I used the RSS feed link to import posts from our phpBB based support forum automatically and spammers had a field day posting things into both our forum and Facebook

Great post Al – when you going to reveal your Stumbleupon secrets?

Hi Al,

I’ve looked at using a fan page before, but this post has made me reevaluate using facebook.

Thank you for the overview of what you’ve done to promote coolest gadgets via facebook.

Many thanks.

Andrew

Hi Al,

Solid post. I’d also recommend creating a custom landing tab for pages as standard. And creating other tabs using the FBML editor with extra info and links through to your site (your just script the tab in html and can have as many links as you want.

Another good tip for twitter feeds is to aggregate the RSS feeds (if you have more than one)using xfruits and then publish them to your wall using a little plug-in facebook app called Social RSS.

Need a bit of help with a page i’m promoting if you can mention. It is relevant to coolest gadgets.

http://www.facebook.com/soundsavers

Thanks for the tip about the vanity URL – had forgotten about that. Went and grabbed facebook.com/britsonpole for the page we activated a few weeks ago.

This is certainly a nice addition to traffic sources.

I like the redesign of Coolest Gadgets, but I’ve noticed that you have very few adsense blocks now. Is still Adsense the main income source of the blog?

This post has really served to illustrate the traffic potential from having a facebook fan page, and what I particularly liked was the traffic figures generated by the competition. It sure works for me!

Al, i was curious.

If i’m not indiscreet, would care to share some info regarding how many of the visitors coming from facebook are returning?

From my experience, people willing to follow you on various sources like this one are usually the same subscribing to email or the ones coming to the site by their own. But i might be wrong…

It’s an amazing blog.This was a very well-written and enjoyable post to read.Thanks for the info sharing with us.The way you have described all the things are superb.Keep it up.Keep blogging.

Im not too much in fb, but i’m addicted to twitter. But after reading this post, i maybe try facebook once.

Will let you know the result,

Hmm, I have seen some real estate types using FB to promote things but as a Spanish mortgage broker I figured my niche was too small.
However we now have a load of repossession properties with 90% and 100% mortgages – the trouble is getting the message across so could be a good idea.
Do you think if I build some relevant backlinks to a page it will rank for specific terms ? If so it is worth giving it a try. Anyone used facebook the same way people rank articles?
Having a partial post on facebook is a good idea – great way to drive traffic to where you want it.
Will definitely look into this.
Good post Al – Cheers!

Another good tip for twitter feeds is to aggregate the RSS feeds (if you have more than one)using xfruits and then publish them to your wall using a little plug-in facebook app called Social RSS.

Need a bit of help with a page i’m promoting if you can mention. It is relevant to coolest gadgets.

thanks…

goood

I really did think the whole Facebook fan page was just a gimmick so was very surprised to see your results. Thank you Al, its something I will definately be setting up!

Fantastic article. I just claimed a better fb address for my personal account, I never would have known about that. I’ll forward this page to a few people, thanks.

Thanks Al. I decided to go ahead and follow your advice and instruction to create a new fan page for GadgetVenue. No goals set yet for fans by the end of the year, but I’ll have that done soon

I find your Facebook page promotion process quite interesting. Also I like the way you keep “luring” your readers even through this post to become a fan of Coolest Gadgets on Facebook. But, a question comes to my mind: won’t a TV only attract people merely interested in the opportunity instead of long-time fans? Perhaps, a workaround for this would be to offer a prize that strictly caters to your target audience, maybe a “geekier” prize such as the danger bomb alarm clock?

Thx for the reminder about claiming a vanity URL for our Facebook page Al. We’ve now got http://www.facebook.com/GizmosForGeeks. Whew – glad it didn’t get snagged.

We’re not really seeing very much traffic coming across from FB – it’s tiny, but there’s really no maintenance, so it’s not too bad of an investment.

Heck, Matthew from GadgetVenue sends more traffic to us than FB!

I’m starting to get a bit worried that over 50% of our traffic is from Google, b/c honestly that gravy train ain’t gonna last forever… especially every time big G decides to change the rules.

Good post. Thx!

_Khalid

Great Post. Have been looking at setting up a facebook fan page after discovering twitter. Must get working

If anyone decides to try the fan page thing, I’d be quite happy to become a fan to those posting here if it would help getting to the 25. If that’s okay with Al/Scott, of course.

Great post Al. Thanks. Created a FB page, group etc.

Has anyone had much success with advertising a fan page on facebook va a site? I would imagine, if you’re promoting a site to new users they are more likely to join a fan page than go to the actual site and subscribe to rss or email. You would also have the benefit of “so and so became a fan of” showing up in their feeds, promoting your fan page to their friends.

what is the plugin used on CG to display facebook fans and joining info ?

Thanks for your tips on starting a fan page, I’ve thought creating one for my t-shirt company(it’s still in launch phase so no real customers yet) but I’m nervous that no one would join, what I would most probably do is get followers from twitter and direct them to facebook from there, by the way, I noticed many fan pages tend to put their URL in the section under the photo that starts with ‘our mission’, I think that should bring some extra visitors to your site:)

Ruchi

This is brilliant, I’m sat in front of the puter on Sunday afternoon wondering what I can do next to take my sites to the next level. This looks like a damn good answer. Cheers.

thanks al… you’ve motivated me to finally do something with facebook… i had a group started but really a fan Page is better because it shows up in people’s statuses when they fan it. so now i have a page. thx

Great Facebook results Thanks for the heads up, I think alot could be do do with your content of course you have to have content that people will like and would not normally search for.

The old “Bored” so go on facebook target audience is ideal for your site nice work.

Probably wouldnt work as well if you had a site all about “Paint Drying” lol

Well done though with those stumble stats looking forward to a post about that little gem

Cheers Al, another useful post, resulting in me setting up a page this weekend (http://www.facebook.com/BusinessOpportunitiesAndIdeas) and linking the blog through Facebook to Twitter and LinkedIn too.

finally some new and great posts! I have been checking every week waiting for something new. I’ve got some catching up to do now

…and a little over 24 hours later here’s mine: http://www.facebook.com/cheapbluraymovies. Already got 138 fans, cant believe I didn’t do this sooner. Cheers Al.

Didnt know this was possible, thanks!

great post, I have just started with facebook advertising and this really helps. Thanks

Great post Al – when you going to reveal your Stumbleupon secrets?

Just recently I’ve gotten into facebook promotion, its not too bad, from my experience so far with it, though it is limited and prolly not as extensive as yours seeing as how I didn’t even know about the RSS Graffiti application that you pointed out to, but anyhow, from my experience the best way I get traffic is whenever a few people “like” my posts on the fan page, that makes is so its like a “hot trend” and apparently it appears on alot of of people’s newsfeed, that’s what really works for me at least.

I’m really surprised Stumbleupon is your top referring site, I’ve always presumed that google would number 1. Would love to hear about your Stumbleupon experiences Al!

Great post! I work for Auto Shipping Network and we’ve come to realize that social media is the way to go. As of now we have our website http://www.autoshippingnetwork.com but will soon be launching a Facebook page. I will definitly be passing this article on.

Great post Al. Thanks. Created a FB page, group etc.

thanks…

very goood

When I started to read the post I thought, well this is very good, I have to build a fan page immediately. Then I found out that you got most of your fans by giving away a free LG TV.

Well, looks like it is pointless to do a fan page unless you have something like that.

HP

I’ve been wanting to know how to create a facebook fan page. thanks for sharing that one – problem solved.

My god this is incredible. I’ve heard about how this method can be used but never detailed like this. I’m definitely going to giving this a go.

Thanks Al.

Fantastic post dude. I’ve already set aside an hour of my time this weekend for this.

hey Awesome post & very interesting also. I have my account on facebook, but i haven’t created any fan page yet. Thanks to your post, i will spend some time on facebook for sure, doing this.

Al,
Since we came on board to redesign the Coolest Gadgets site we’re amazed to see the consistent rise in Facebook Fan signups. We knew through experience the new Facebook elements on the page would aid the fan signup rate but never quite like this. Your readership is obviously a loyal one and the quality of the content on the site is clearly reflected in its success.

On a separate note, we’re launching our own Facebook page this week to help with our new project FrogsThemes.com, so we’ll be sure to let you know.

Keep up the good work!

Rather nervously, I have followed your advice. I’m raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support by running the Virgin London Marathon on 25th April 2010. I have a website and a Facebook account so hope I’ve done everything right. I’ve set up a fanpage called Joanna’s Marathon. I’ve never run a marathon before and I’ve never set up a fan page before. Wish me luck

I´ll give this ago on the new real estate site I have been working on then. Don´t mind investing my time!
Anyone have a facebook page ranked for keywords yet? Or is this not really something that will work?

Thanks for the tips, i’ve only recently started mind, just over 200 so far, but hopefully the value i give and through my blog that will rise quickly!

Cheers

I am a Fan!

oh and added you on facebook

Good post, i have many facebook pages which is nearly empty that will help me alot.

So I finally decided to make a Facebook page of my own. Your instructions on this blog really helped out a ton.

Till then,

Jean

Great post All. Thanks a lot Created a FB page..

I have started a facebook fan page for the cars section of my site but need 25 fans i think so I can get a proper URL :-

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Cars/114129098615992?ref=ss

would really appreciate it if anybody who can spare a second to become a Fan Please!

Then I can get started with a free give away.

Done!

Great tips on building traffic from a Facebook page. I have never though of Facebook as a traffic source for my site. I am going to set one up today.

I’ve always said it….. social searh is teh future. Forget about Google

Hi! Thanks for this post. It definitely changed how i perceive the Facebook fan page stuff. Thinking initially that it was all rubbish.. but then in reality it’s not. We need more people like you who are dedicated in raising awareness, though trivial that information may sound. But since a lot of people are mislead by first impression or wrong information, this is definitely a valuable act for many of us. Thanks again.

I made a page for our long-running dream dictionary and dream forum site and just got to 25 fans. I wanted ‘dreams’ as my name but, even though Facebook says there is no such page, it says ‘dreams’ is unavailable… however, I have got http://www.facebook.com/dreamdictionary instead, which is still quite nice.

I made a fan page (http://www.facebook.com/OffersBoutique I had completely forgotten about vanity urls!

Facebook’s Audience Here are some Facebook stats straight from the horse’s mouth: More than 400 million active users 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day More than 35 million users update their status each day More than 6…

Great post. I have just implemented this for our loft conversion website. Have also used RSS Graffiti but having some issues at the moment linking Facebook with Twitter for the feed. We’re now on facebook and twitter. I’ve also added the “like” button to some of the pages on website hopefully making the reader experience more socialable and appearing “cool”. Blog entry has also been added on the site. I now await having 25 fans! Would love you to all become fans.

I have just recently made a fan page for my blog. You post gave me a good idea of how to promote my fan page. Thanks

It will be interesting to see how you get on with your loft conversion page, as you know my site is on the same subject. Keep us all posted on how it works out for you. Did you have any specific plans for building up a good following of fans?

Will do John. Your ranking higher then me but lets see – not thought of any specific plans for building up a good following of fans but feel free to join I only want genuine loft conversion followers therefore avoiding mass marketing. First target is to acheive 25 fans… im 20% there so far. Any advice appreciated.

@Gaurav Mehta, that’s a nice looking website, I like the colours etc – it works really well. Do you have a mailing list, if you do you could politely ask them to ‘like’ your FB page if they’re FB members and have a moment. It was easier for me with the dreams site because it has a forum, so I just mass emailed all the members.

@Johnathan – thanks. However I am not sure if I should be turning the buttons orange – with a “buy it now” button after reading a post on the site. Not just yet, me thinks – maybe when I try to refresh the website. We don’t have a mailing list – however we could I guess contact our old customers and see if they are on facebook. I want to add a forum to the website but not sure where to start just need to read up on it. Which piece of software/app are you using?

@Gaurav Mehta, we use vBulletin for all our forums now. You can start out with a free forum script though like ‘phpbb’ or ’simple machines forum’, then trade up to the paid for vBulletin if it gets busy if you want. My first forum was using phpbb, which is the most popular free forum you can use, but I love SMF too – I would use that if I weren’t using vBulletin I think.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this subject, and the common consensus is that the facebook traffic converts poorly, a lot like StumbleUpon traffic. Wat is your experience here?

my 2 cents….. anything you post on the page, post it in your personal profile as well with a comment to check out more on the business’ page.

@Baby England Kit… good tip. I currently have the RSS feed via RSS graffitti going to both my page and personal profle. The more time it is trawled the better!

@Goran Giertz. Any traffic is better then no traffic. Yes, the conversion rate may be poor but this is just another marketing/communication tool and you never know people talk (yes i think they still do) and recommendations can happen. I don’t mind having followers as followers followers will then become aware and awareness is KING.

@Johnathan – I’ll have a look into that! Thanks.

Im trying out the facebook ads programme at the moment. Daily Budget is not high and even though I am get impressions in the tens of thousands – so far after over 200,000 impressions – I have gained 8 additional fans the sooner I get 25 genuine fans I’ll be having a hoot. Added some more content to the site – hopefully that will also help attract readers and convert into customer value.

I suppose it’s not something that many people can be a ‘fan’ of, loft conversions. Only people who are thinking about doing it will be interested. I’ve made a fan page for a British author a few weeks ago, since reading this article, and have over 300 fans from spending 16 quid so far. But he’s quite a popular guy already so it’s pretty easy.

However, I’m only getting my money back long term from advertising on the website. Where, for you, you only need an extra loft conversion or two and you’ll have easily made your money back I guess?

I set a page up on Thursday and have 30 fans now – had to post a lot on my own profile to get them but have now been able to pick a better URL.
Really don´t know if I´ll get any business from that but its free and relatively simple to run.
I have added a facebook comment plugin to my site which shows up your facebook profile if you are logged into facebook.
I think it is good from a credibility perspective. Showing people they can leave feedback on your site and on your facebook page may heighten trust in what is a sector full of crooks and shady buggers.
Have a look here to see what I mean as its difficult to explain: (make sure you are logged into facebook)
http://tenerifeestateagents.net/luxury-apartment-repossession-in-palm-mar-100-percent-mortgage/

Another good tip for twitter feeds is to aggregate the RSS feeds (if you have more than one)using xfruits and then publish them to your wall using a little plug-in facebook app called Social RSS.

I’m a new to the world of blogs and social services like Facebook and your article helped me a lot. Thank you and I hope that thanks to your help I will make some great facebook site of my tattoo blog. I never thought about Facebook as a place where I can create a traffic to my site but obviously I was wrong. Great article and wish you Good Luck.

Does the username for fan pages still apply?? I read on facebook the following..
“Your Facebook Page must meet two requirements: it must be live on Facebook prior to the May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have a minimum 1,000 fans as of May 31, 2009.”

I don’t think that’s valid anymore, from my tests you just need 25 fans

yep you’re absolutely right al managed to secure a nice one

I think I needed 30 fans – got them really quickly just by inviting everyone on my friends list. People sign up to anything on Facebook!

I am not quite finding that for loft conversions…. still stuck on 11. Guys please become a fan if your on facebook. Thanks

@Gaurav Mehta, are you paying for Facebook ads or just waiting?

I still dislike facebook just on principle, but I can’t argue with the effectiveness you’ve illustrated. Guess I’ll be joining the ranks of facebook users after all. Thanks for the step-by-step guide as well, I’m sure I’ll need it!

Damn, the site ate my comment >:( Well the short version is I hate facebook but this looks like a great advertising tool so I’ll give it a shot.

I’ve never really been into Facebook – But I decided to create a fan page on there for one of my websites. I’m just curious how you attract people to the page?

For example, you create a fan page about your mustang website
Then you see a similar mustang car fan page with thousands of fans. How could you attract those fans to your page? With the ultimate goal of getting them to your website!

I was paying but have stopped the ad… I had nearly a million impressions and out of that I attracted 6 new fans! spent about £40 on it – seems like not many people are interested in loft conversions and I didnt get any leads via it. Open to ideas. I need 25!

Great Article! I streamlined all my online marketing with thefacebookwizard.com!

It gives ya UNLIMITED mass messaging, commenting, liking, adding, etc without getting banned!

Thank you very much for the great post. I’ve been hearing a lot about how Facebook can be used to get traffic, but this is my first time to actually read specific steps on how to accomplish that. I’m going to try it… hopefully it’ll work!

As all knows facebook one of the most popular website of social media and millions of people using it. Creating facebook with well designed. Attractive design of facebook page can create more impact on friends and visitor.

I am surprised to hear that was your 4th highest source of traffic. Did not expect it to be that high. But I guess it goes to show you if you do something right that you will end up seeing results!

Informative post. Glad to see that you have so much subscribers – and that you like gathering lists (unlike me). I have had a facebook account now since October 2008 and Twitter account since 2008. Would you say that I’m just a very lame blogger?
I have heard that one can get a lot of traffic from Facebook and Twitter (and make money obviously through it) but I never made the plan to actually get to get the traffic.
So you think I’m quite insane?

Thank you for this guide. This is exactly what I was trying to understand. What about those 3 step scripts that people use on their pages to make money?

I had recently written a similar post. In fact, having a fan page for your brand is extremely important. At the same, most people just redirects blog post feeds and twitter feeds there.

Blog contests help a lot whereby one has to like the fan page as an entry criteria. The other thing could be facebook CPM ads which comes pretty cheap. And as you rightly said, writing a blog post etc is a must. Another important point is reminding your profile friends to keep joining the fan page. Sometimes it’s duplicated effort and irritating but it works!

Theres a great way to track any traffic going to a facebook fanpage using google analytics. You need to set up a cutom html box on the homepage, its far more accurate than the facebook updates you get and you can see where the traffic is coming form

A nice addition to traffic sources.i’ve also read something like this in an WSO e-book, How ever nice post. And we r waiting for ur Stumbleupon secrets.

Facebook is unfathomable to me, I really am the opposite of their perfect user. I wish I could use it for traffic and marketing though. Might have to bite the bullet and join one of these days.

Thanks very much for that analytics tip! I have just added an FBML box to my wall with an img analytics code. Will check tomorrow to see if it is working.

I just cant get people to Like the page! Im going to give Twitter a try, already go more follows within a short period

Have you asked all your friends? I got about 30 from just asking some people in my friends list. Told them I needed 30 to get my own name and they were happy enough to sign up.

Hi Al, hope you are well

I finally got my blog migrated to WP – it’s been a long time coming, really pleased with the update.

One of the next things on my ‘todo’ list is to implement the FB feed – I’ll let you know when it’s live so you can ‘fan’ my page

I really need to catch-up with you sometime soon… I could do with a little WP advice in relation to a new project I want to start.

P

Where do you get these kind donors with TVs to give away?

It is worth emphasizing you need to setup a personal account FIRST before your business pages are setup. Facebook allows a business account first to be created, but then fail to explain why you can’t customize the account.

Personal first, then -> Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business.

Friend me!
EggHeaven Gadget Gifts

Update I’ve got 16 fans now to the Touchstone Lofts loft conversion page. I am struggling to “sell it”… I still need to hit 25 fans… if you love loft conversions – please feel free to join.

Just ‘liked’ three Facebook pages from people on here. My FB feed is going to look a bit odd to my friends!

I have managed to accrue just under 200 fans since May as a result of reading this post and setting up a page.
I think it son 192 or something so not too bad!
I am doing some back-linking to the actual page now to see if I can get it to rank – that way all the rss posts may pass some link juice back to my site.
I get quite a few click throughs when I post a new property and the traffic is as targeted as it gets as they have all opted in so seems to be working well so far!

Hi
I was just wondering. I have been struggeling with getting goof traffic to my developed sites. Now you say you buld you fanpage of ~2000 people by giving away a free tv. How does that related to the 2000 people that are onlky on you facebook page and might not even visit your reak site regularly. There has to be a positive payout i guess, but I am really confused on how to evaluate these fanpages etc.

I should really look at investing some money and time into Facebook. It seems like a really powerful way to create brand awareness.

Hello!

At the moment the visits from Facebook are around the 60% New Visitor level. I only made the change a few days ago that forces them to visit the site to read the full article but I’ll know more over time.

I’d expect there will be some readers that subscribe via multiple methods but I expect the majority will use their preferred reading method as it’s pretty pointless subscribing to the same content in different clients.

Regards,
Sandra

Believe it or not I have never gotten to 25 fans on any of my profiles so I never got the nifty url. I will give you idea a try to email friends and family to add me as a fan. Thanks for the tips Al.

Would love an update on this mate… hows the traffic/seo from Facebook coming

I still cant get this to work! seriously just cant get it over 300 followers woot.

The difference between step 1 and 5 is very interesting and anyone that is surprise by it shouldn’t be.

There’s two reasons why what might seem like the same thing had different results.

- Ease of use
- Continued exposure

So he got almost as many fans as the contest produced,
just from cross promotion.

Great post. I have just created a fan page for my lego site and currently have 20 fans, so only 5 to go before I can have a nicer url.

For anyone that wants to trade fans – my fan page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-Coloured-Bricks/141924345849184#!/pages/Little-Coloured-Bricks/141924345849184

This post was totally helpful Al
I created page for NinePlanets http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nine-Planets/124974757563139

At the moment the visits from Facebook are around the 60% New Visitor level. I only made the change a few days ago that forces them to visit the site to read the full article but I’ll know more over time.
I’d expect there will be some readers that subscribe via multiple methods but I expect the majority will use their preferred reading method as it’s pretty pointless subscribing to the same content in different clients.
Regards,
Sandra

How are you coming on your 5,000 fans before Christmas.? I am currently working on building up my brand before I venture into Facebook land. I have a personal site but not a business one. I think having the competition is a great idea and also a great way to give back to your readers.

Just gor past the name claim stage for tanks.net page: http://www.facebook.com/armytanks

I still can’t monetize my fanpage, although i didnt even try with affiliate links yet, just with links to my etsy and to my blog. I have some 2300 fans now and around 450 impressions when i make updates. Maybe i need more impressions? And what would you recommend as far as affiliates go, Clickbank, CJ or something else? PLs visit if you have time http://www.facebook.com/CharmingBdz

Selina, it is very difficult I agree. I think Facebook is not totally geared towards buying stuff, though that’s not to say it’s impossible but I think you’d need loads more fans and regular visitors/interactors.

CJ costs a fortune to get in for sellers, and I’m not sure about clickbank for jewellery.

It might be good if you run a competition from facebook on your blog to win an item of jewellery now and again, to get people going to your blog via facebook. For example you could make a blog post about a romantic gift prize and ask people to reply with their romantic stories involving jewellery or gifts and you pick the best one and send them the prize. This gets people coming to your site and adding content for you, plus the odd runner up might buy something anyway?

I would consider setting up a proper site of your own at some point though, on your own domain name, to build your own brand identity – and so people can remember the address so they can tell other people face to face. charmingbeadz.blogspot.com is quite hard to remember, especially if you never heard of blogspot (believe me, many people have not – especially people new to the internet), and etsy.com/shop/CharmingBeadz is practically impossible to remember off the top of your head.

The products themselves look very beautiful, so there must be a market out there for them.

i am using facebook ads to promote my page but not getting the results back on the investment
i am surely going to try your tips now
thanks a ton

wow up to 11k “likes”
I suppose that would mean you hit your christmas goal?

Also not only does this reduce your reliance on SEs.
But these days its becoming increasingly important for organic ranking anyway.
So “killing two birds”.

Personally I think FB is going to be a more powerful SEO tool in the future, at the moment google is not saying much but bet you bottom dollar, they are looking. I set up an FB AD page and it has attracted a lot of like, 327 but traffic is not that great.

I am building Facebook fan pages for majority of my websites to get those initial 25 fans to claim your url I often use micro outsourcing sites like Amazon MTurk, just pay somebody like 1 cent for becoming fan of your page because I have a lot of pages my friends would hate me if I ask them to like all of my pages