Advice Needed - How to Build a Facebook Following from Nothing

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Hi all,

I've been having trouble finding an answer to my question online and around the forum, so hopefully some of you will have some ideas or experiences with this.

I'm starting a business (aren't we all). It's a unique product, custom design, requires a license to create, and is quite expensive. Think... collectible movie merchandise, like replica Lightsabers.

My question is, how can I start to build an audience, without advertising? I've commissioned a design, and I have several images of it. I have a brand name, logo, and facebook page set up and ready to go. My question is: once I start to post pictures to the facebook page, how do I get people to find the page? Without paying for ads.

Here are my thoughts so far:

1) There are a handful (3-5) facebook groups within the niche that I'm a member of. I think that I could post an image on my own page, then go to the groups and basically say "hi, I'm working on making X, here's a few images, and you can follow my page <here> for more updates". Obviously copy would be dialed in and all of that.

2) I could go through and cold-invite the members of the above-mentioned groups to join my page with a little message similar to the copy from the post.

3) Work to build an Instagram following by following people, good use of images, and good use of hashtags and then work to redirect them to the facebook page or a landing page that I could set up. There's a Notable! thread with a lot of good advice on how to build up IG followers that I'll be using.

I'd like to know if there are other options I should be using or if any of these are ineffective from your experience.

The commission wasn't cheap, so I'm trying to get as far as I can on free, organic traffic before I begin advertising. Ideally, I'd hold off on advertising until I'm actually prepared to make sales, which may be many months out.

I'd appreciate any and all thoughts and advice! Thanks in advance.

 

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[MattR82]

Would that annoy admins of the groups you are talking about and possibly get you kicked off? Suppose it depends how open they are to self promotion.

@Andy Black has a good thread called pm me that you may find interesting. Although as you have a product rather than a service it may be kinda different.

How active and well known are you in the groups already? Are you someone known as an expert or have some kind of authority or would it just be like chucking a dead cat on the table and walking out?

 

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Would that annoy admins of the groups you are talking about and possibly get you kicked off? Suppose it depends how open they are to self promotion.

Great question. I'm a member of several groups. I've identified a small handful that encourage people to post projects they're working on, and promotion is permitted.

@Andy Black has a good thread called pm me that you may find interesting. Although as you have a product rather than a service it may be kinda different.

I will find that thread, thank you!

How active and well known are you in the groups already? Are you someone known as an expert or have some kind of authority or would it just be like chucking a dead cat on the table and walking out?

I'm not active within them at all. They're largely "XYZ Company has just released a new product!" or "My shipment finally arrived, check it out!". I don't see a lot of value-add opportunities within the comment sections of the posts, but getting more engaged is absolutely something I need to do, even if it's just liking and commenting "Looks awesome". The group admins are very regular posters, and I've toyed with the idea of reaching out to them to see if they want to post in their groups, but I'm struggling with what I could offer in return. I guess the worst thing that could happen is they decline.