Many businesses have started creating their own Facebook Fan pages to communicate with their customers and fans. However not everyone knows that you can also use your Fan page to collect valuable email addresses to contact your fans directly in their inbox. Adding a newsletter sign up form to your Facebook fan page only takes a few minutes but can be very effective in growing your email list.

If you are looking for more information on why your business needs a Facebook Page you can read our earlier post: Do you need a Facebook Fan Page for your business?

What you will need:

1) Facebook Fan Page
2) Email sign up form (Many online email marketing tools offer a built-in tool to create an HTML sign up form for your website)

How to add a Newsletter Signup form to your Facebook fan page

Step 1: Login to Facebook and go to your Fan Page
Step 2: Click on the “Ads and Pages” link in the footer toolbar of your Fan page
Step 3: Click on the “Pages” link, and then on “View Page”

Step 4: Add the “Static FBML” application to your page by click on the “Application” icon in the footer toolbar.
Then select “Browse More Applications”

Step 5: Search for “Static FBML“, and click on the icon for the application.
Looks like this:

Step 6: Click on the “Add to my Page”

Step 6: Configure your newly added application, by clicking on “Edit Page” on the left menu.

Step 7: Put your mouse cursor over the blue pencil icon, and click on “edit” under the Admin Options.

Step 8: Paste the HTML code for your sign up form. This was the second item from our what you will need checklist above.
On the Edit FBML screen paste your sign up for source code and then click “Save Changes“.

Step 9: Your Facebook Fan page should not contain a new Newsletter tab which when clicked will display your email sign up form.
If you do not see the Newsletter Signup form option click on the ‘+’ sign to see more tabs. Your page probably looks something like this:

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When you set out to engage your audience, or build a community of followers in social media you need to encourage them to start following your updates. Of course you probably have offer different ways to stay in touch, which could include options to Subscribe to a Newsletter, subscribe to an automated Feed for updates. Also known as RSS. Which are all universal ways to be able send updates to your readers in this social media context called followers or fans.

If you are using Twitter to engage your online audience you can send them updates via “Tweets” which is a coined term to mean short 140 character updates that are sent in real-time.  Twitter also has an option to integrate with your mobile phone so you can get text messages from the people and/or businesses you follow online.

How to get more Followers in Social Media

• Know your Audience
  This is one of those golden rules, but it is very true. You do not want to alienate a loyal following or fan base. So you need to establish a tone and regular updates that will interest your readers.
• Connect with your Followers
  This is an interesting topic, because you can not assume all your target market uses the same tools. Some age groups for instance are more likely to use Facebook vs. Twitter. And knowing what tools your readers use is very important. If you are marketing to a Business to Business crowd maybe LinkedIn makes more sense because that is a geared to professional networking.
• Build Trust
  You are trying to build credibility and to represent yourself as a trusted authority, so try to be as genuine as you would be if someone was to meet you in person. Remember your personality should and can come through in the way your write.
• All your Followers are Important
  This point can not be emphasized enough. Even if you just started and have a small following you still want to respond to your followers and let them know you are listening. If you do not interact with them then the benefits of social media fall down. The purest form of being social is developing a two-way conversation otherwise it is just promotion and that can tune out your readers. By joining your online brand or Facebook page, etc. they want to feel part of your brand experience.
• Followers are great Evangelists
  If what you are trying to build is a community of evangelists then there is probably no better place than online. Having loyal fans that will promote your business and brand to their friends online is the easiest way to get word of mouth advertising and referrals.
• Share other people’s ideas
  You want to be seen as open to new ideas, and sharing other’s content and ideas is a great way to do that. Whether it be linking or discussing another Blog post, tweet, etc. The more you share the more people will notice you and start following your blog, tweets and what you have to say. This helps to grow your following by discussing topics that readers are interested in hearing about.

In addition to the pointers listed above, you want to build your followers because that is who you will go to for feedback on product ideas, how to improve your business processes such as customer service. You might also just find your next prospect or customer is generated from first being an early follower.

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