Facebook isn't in this for you to make sales or grow your business, the only thing they're interested in is making their money by selling your data or getting you to pay so that your posts reach more people.
Ouch. Truth bomb right from the start. Let's take a look at a few more throughout this article.
First of all, I'd like to point out that I'm basing this article on a real case that came to me via our Facebook group for Portuguese clothing brands.
For obvious reasons, I won't mention which clothing brand I'm talking about, except that it's Portuguese, just starting out and has just over 200 fans on its Facebook page. By this description there could be at least 500 brands. This article is for all of them.
I'm not a Midas. What I touch doesn't turn to gold and I get what I have through hard work (an unhealthy amount of work, in fact), so read this article very critically and don't assume that everything here will work. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.
How do you increase the number of fans?
It's difficult and hard work. In fact, it's becoming more and more difficult as Facebook keeps changing its algorithm. If you have 200 fans on your page, any article you post will - if you're lucky - reach 60 of those people. If you have 2000, you'll be happy if you reach 200. It's as simple as that.
Because it's so difficult to get any kind of organic reach for your publications, the worst thing you can do is buy fan packs from Fiverr or other sites. PLEASE DON'T BUY FANS! Don't get involved in fan-buying schemes because you won't get any benefit. By doing this, you risk the people you reach being bots from Pakistan who won't be of any benefit to you.
That said, I can tell you that I would never buy a single garment from pages with less than 2,000 likes. And these 2000 likes are always the hardest to achieve, because from there things grow naturally and organically.
So how do you get those (at least) 2000 fans?
Here are some basic and simple ideas to put into practice.
1. send your brand t-shirts to digital influencers to wear and tag your page. You'll have to give away some t-shirts, but it might be worth it
2. Don't bet on photos, Facebook hates photos. Video, that's where the "juice" is for organic reach. Want a real example?
EXAMPLES OF POSTS WITH PHOTOS
VIDEO POST EXAMPLES
What lesson can we learn from this?
With 8000+ fans on the page, an article with a photo that is performing 95% better than the rest (in terms of interaction) only reached 1100 people.
A video with less interaction reached 2500 people and had 1100 views (and it's a video with below-average statistics).
BET ON VIDEO! This will be lesson number 1.
Please note that this is not just any video. It has to be a video of at least 1:30 for you to get minimally satisfactory results.
Encourages interaction
Lose your shame and garment people directly to comment. Use something that makes people say "I like it"/"I don't like it" or give ideas. Appeal to their emotions.
The more people who comment, the greater your reach will be because their friends will also receive a comment notification and may jump over to your page.
Promote articles
Yes, I know it's difficult and you don't have the money, but please don't forget that having a clothing brand is much more than having decorated t-shirts made and then uploading photos to Facebook. You need to have a marketing budget.
Can I give you a personal example?
When I started Maudlin I didn't smoke or drink alcohol. I rarely went out at night, so I didn't have any "vices" that I could cut back on to make some extra money. What I initially did to scrape together a few dozen euros was to skip a few meals here and there (I don't recommend this to anyone) or find a way to earn a few bob doing odd jobs.
If you're in the habit of taking Uber, take the bus for a week. Or walk two or three stops further to save a few cents on transport.
When you get a few euros, promote an article.
Any advice? Take photos of influencers who have worn your clothes, try to find out who the typical fan of that influencer is and do a sponsored article to target those people. Write a nice text saying "X person wears Y brand of clothing. Have you seen what we have for you"?
If you're good at video, garment us to film part of the production, we'll be happy to send you the videos and you can edit them to promote as well (you'll get great results, people love to see "something" being built).
I'm not saying that with these mini tips you'll be able to turn your 200-fan page into a 2000-fan page in a month. I'm telling you that with an investment of €1/day and good targeting, you'll be able to create a snowball effect.
The points to focus on are:
- Share your story. Communicate with your fans, make them want to be your customers
- For those who are already your customers, garment them with reviews in exchange for discounts on their next purchase or a discount code in exchange for a purchase made by someone brought in by that person.
- Use and abuse video. Be original. Discover your target audience and attack them wherever they are.
- Don't think that Facebook is everything. There are more social networks, marketplaces, offline sales, shops and a whole world of possibilities for selling your clothes.
Extra tip
Promote a competition on your page.
Take the following scenario. Run a competition in which you offer 5 t-shirts to anyone who comments on your post and shares your page publicly.
Those 5 t-shirts will cost you more than if you had to pay to reach those people who will now automatically see your professional profile. If you have 10 shares and each of those people has 400 friends, do the maths. All it takes is for 50 per cent of those people to see the share and you'll have access to 2,000 new potential customers.
I hope I've been able to help. I'm going to write a bit more about practical tips for promoting your clothing brand on social media.