How To Promote Your Blog On Facebook

If you’re a blogger, you’ve probably heard that you NEED to have a Facebook page for your site. It’s easy enough to set up a Facebook page, but how do you promote your blog on Facebook to get followers and pageviews?

Facebook changes its algorithm all the time, so there’s no point in trying to figure out how to game the system. However, their intent is pretty clear. They want to be a social platform where people will come and spend time looking through their feed.

So what does that mean?

To successfully promote your blog on Facebook, you need to encourage engagement.

How do you do that?

It’s actually pretty simple. Have an identity and share interesting stuff!

Okay, that sounds simple enough. Does that mean it’s easy to do? No, not really. It took me a long time to really grasp that concept and turn it into a Facebook strategy.

But before we get to that, you need to set up your page and get followers.

Step 1: Create a page for your blog on Facebook

When you log in to Facebook, click on the little black triangle on the top right of the screen. Scroll down to ‘Create Page’ and click it!

You’ll have several options for the type of page you will be. Select the one that you think fits you best, but I recommend choosing Cause or Community.

Even though your page is for your blog, in order to get a following you’ll be curating content that encourages engagement. You will be replying to comments, asking questions, celebrating successes, etc.

To have a successful Facebook page, you want your page to be a community, so just go ahead and call it that. 🙂

Enter the name of your page in the box and click ‘Get Started.’

Follow the rest of the steps to finish your page, and you’re done!

Choosing a name for your page:

It doesn’t have to be the name of your blog, but you do want it to be consistent with the topic of your blog.
Choose a name that will pique the interest of your target audience and has a clear purpose.
Check to see if any other Facebook pages already use your desired page and username.
You can choose any name for your page, but usernames have to be unique. You may find that you can’t get a username that matches your page name. In that case, you can either choose something similar to your page name or think about changing your page name altogether.
To change page names and usernames, go to your page and click on ‘About’ in the left-hand column. Click edit next to ‘Name’ and ‘Username’ and request to change them.
If Facebook won’t let you choose a username right away, wait a few days, get a few followers and try again.

Your page needs to have an identity

Essentially, this just means that you need to figure out what your page stands for. Have an opinion on something, stand up for a cause, and make sure everything you share fits with that opinion.

Make sure your profile and cover photos show what your page is about.

Your profile image should be in keeping with your page’s identity. If you choose to have yourself in it, make sure that it still conveys the message you want to send. Unless you are already known within your community, it should probably not just be a picture of your face.

Your cover photo, slideshow, or video should also be very much in line with your page’s identity. Don’t just slap up a picture of something.

Setting up a call to action on your Facebook page

Facebook offers the option of adding a CTA (call to action) on your blog’s Facebook page. It’s the blue button on the right just under your cover photo.

Most bloggers choose to direct this button to a sign up for your email newsletter. But you may choose to direct it to a landing page for a product or service you offer on your website.

Simply hover over the button on your page to edit your CTA and follow the prompts to set it up to your liking.

How do you get page likes?

One of the hardest things about starting a new page on Facebook is getting followers. They won’t just happen because you created a page. Even just boosting posts won’t create an audience.

How to get free likes on your Facebook page

Invite your friends.

If you have a lot of friends who are interested in your niche, start by inviting those people to like your page. Because they’re your friends, they’ll probably like your page. Hopefully, they like and share your content as well.

You only want to invite people who have an interest in your niche. If they’re not interested, they won’t interact and may even unfollow you without you knowing.

That’s not doing you any favors. So only invite people who might be interested in your content.

Promote your page on your blog, in your newsletter, even on Pinterest

You can add links to your blog’s Facebook page in posts, in the sidebar, in the footer, anywhere on your site. You can even use a popup plug-in or MiloTree to encourage followers to your page.

Make sure there is an option to follow you on Facebook in all your newsletters. You could even upload an image to Pinterest and direct it to your page.

Share your posts in relevant Facebook groups

I will admit that I haven’t worked this angle very much, but lots of bloggers swear by this technique.

The thing is, your posts must be relevant to the topic of the group, and you absolutely must be interactive in the group. Don’t just drop a link and go. It won’t work, and you’ll look spammy.

Nobody likes that.

Share your posts on relevant Facebook pages

Some pages will let you post to the page. It’s not the same thing as posting on their page. There’s a separate section that followers have to click to see posts to that page. So it won’t get you a lot of visits to your own page.

Buuuuut if you’re polite and share something that’s super relevant and shareable, that page might share your post. And that can help a lot!

Invite people who like your posts to like your page

With the way Facebook’s algorithm works, people who do not like your page can sometimes see your posts. Whenever you get likes on a post, you can click the likes to see who has interacted with your post and invite them to like your page.

This technique works really well for some pages. If you’re sharing content that is super relevant, it’s a great way to find people who will love your page.

Or you can pay to promote your page to a targeted audience.

Make sure you refine your audience so your page is getting shown to people who will interact with your content. It would be silly to waste money on followers who don’t care about what you post.

Try to think of interests or pages that your ideal reader would like and target those people.

Promoting your Facebook page can help increase followers who might enjoy your page.

Step 2: Post shareable content

This is where most people get frustrated.

How do you know what to share?

Share a mix of images/memes, videos, and links. You might be surprised by which types of posts do well on your page.
Go Live! Making live videos on a regular basis will also help your page grow more quickly.

I know you want to promote every post on your blog on Facebook every day, but when you’re just starting out it’s better to practice some restraint.

Definitely, do no not just share your own posts.

I only share my own posts 3 or 4 times per week. Sometimes less, and never more than once per day. If your page already has a million followers, then it’d probably be fine to share your post many times per day.

But when I was working my way from the 100s to the 1000s of page views, I definitely had to be careful not to overshare my own posts.

It’s best to vary the way you share your blog posts as well. There are many ways you can increase engagement when you are promoting blog posts.

When you share direct links, always add a comment or question to encourage interaction. And make sure you have an image optimized for Facebook sharing. I use Canva, make a Twitter card, and put it in my Yoast plug-in.
Share an image from your post, comment or ask a question, and add the link to the post.
Make a meme with a quote from the post, comment or ask a question, and add the link to the post.
Go live and talk about what made you write the post, talk about the larger points of your post and leave the details for reading, do a demo, whatever.
Make a video for the post
Write an excerpt of your post and add a link to ‘Read more’ or ‘Pin it for later’

Don’t participate in random share threads

Share threads can be a great way to get your articles seen by new eyes but don’t participate in share threads for Facebook unless the content is super on point with your page’s identity.

You can’t just share random posts from your blogger friends either. I did that for a while. It was boring, and my page had no engagement. But at that time, I had no idea how to find great stuff to share on Facebook.

Remember that the more posts you have that don’t get engagement, the fewer people will see any of your posts.

In the beginning, you have to give more than you ask for. Give your followers something they want to watch, read, click on, and share. Make sure it’s worth their time to interact with your posts.

If you find something that fits your niche and YOU want to say something about it, then chances are your followers will have something to say about it.

Some of the Facebook strategies I use on my page now.

Use the search bar at the top of Facebook to find popular videos and memes.
Use the pages you watch feature: Insights > Overview > Scroll to bottom to see/add/edit pages you watch. Share their posts that get good engagement.
Share the posts directly from the page. If the post already has good interaction on that page, Facebook will push that post up higher in your followers’ feed.
Like and reply to comments. Answer messages in a timely manner.
Add to your Facebook stories. You can actually push your Instagram stories directly to your Facebook stories.
Use your analytics to see what kinds of posts your audience is engaging with most. (Insights > Posts > Post Types)

Step 3: Find a scheduler you like and use it

It’s way too much to try to keep up with Facebook without a scheduler!

Facebook has a built-in scheduler that you can use for free. Just click the white triangle next to ‘Publish’ and choose ‘Schedule Post.’

I heard initially that Facebook doesn’t like schedulers, but that is just caca. It’s fine to use a scheduler.

I am currently using CoSchedule. I like that it integrates into WordPress so you can schedule out blog posts to social media as you write them. And it has a calendar layout so you can drag and drop posts.

I’ve also tried HootSuite and Buffer. Both were easy to use and offer their own benefits. I stuck with Buffer until I went to CoSchedule.

But there are tons of options and new ones coming out all the time. So try out a few and see what you like.

How many Facebook posts should you schedule each day?

I would say this depends a lot on your goals and audience.

I find that one or two posts per day is plenty. More than that and I’m just working harder and get no benefit. Finding shareable content for 4 or more posts per day can be challenging.

I’ve heard others recommend sharing only once per week! So it’s really completely up to you and your goals for your page.

Personally, I prefer to keep it really simple.

Two posts per day works great for me! My posts get likes, shares, and comments, and I get some traffic to my blog.

My page has just over 8000 likes, and I’m getting some traffic to my blog from my Facebook page. It could be only 20. It could be 100 or more.

So, for me, that’s definitely worth the minimal effort it takes to schedule 1-2 posts per day. And I truly enjoy interacting with people on my page.

What about boosting posts?

I don’t pay to boost my posts because that hasn’t helped me very much.

The key to boosting posts is to find the perfect audience that will interact with your post. I haven’t figured out that formula, so I just don’t do it.

What about Facebook courses and e-books by other bloggers?

Always check out the blogger who is selling an e-book or online course. If it’s about Facebook, stalk their Facebook page. Read their posts, note how many comments and shares their posts have. How many followers they have. Always do your homework when buying online courses.

I’ve read some books & taken courses about Facebook in the Genius Bloggers Toolkit. I LUURV the toolkit because you get access to so much information for so little money!

Why should you follow my advice for promoting your blog on Facebook?

You can choose to follow these techniques or not. I’m simply sharing my experience.

Everything in this post is my own experience creating and managing Facebook pages. I have several pages that are pretty much a ghost town, so I know what doesn’t work.

I also have a page that is a couple of years old, and it didn’t start to grow until I started seeing it as a place to share interesting things that coincide with my message.

Am I an expert? Nope. I’m not trying to present myself as one either.

I’m just a regular blogger who started a little Facebook page trying to get readers to my blog posts. Just. Like. You.

And the Facebook page for this blog? It has been through some major changes, and hasn’t had great success because I didn’t have a clear mission.

I’ve had this blog for several months, but I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to use it. I had some ideas, but I never felt inspired until recently. Managing 2 blogs is really a lot of work, too.

So I focus most of my effort on the blog that is bringing in money. Which brings me to the next question…

Do I really need a Facebook page for my blog?

Well, I think that you do.

If you already have an established audience, it’s a no-brainer. Definitely, work it.

If you’re a new page just starting out, I would create a page to claim your username and space on Facebook, but I wouldn’t put too much energy into it. Use the free scheduler from Hootsuite to add one post per day and vary between memes, videos, and links.

If you’re after pageviews, you’re much better off working Pinterest and SEO. Take a look at these ideas for generating more traffic to your blog.

But Facebook is still a very powerful social media platform, so I don’t think it should be completely ignored.

How do you promote your blog on Facebook?

What is working (or not working) for you? Or are you wondering if having a Facebook page is worth the time and effort?