How can a brand create traffic on its Facebook page?

The question of the day is: how can brands create real and sustainable traffic on their Facebook pages ?

Many solutions are possible but today I will only present three recent and possibly most pertinent ones to you! 

Use humour

One of my favorite pages as a marketer and as a consumer is the Oasis Facebook page (for the record, Oasis is a French brand of softdrinks). Content is regularly diffused on the page (https://www.facebook.com/oasisfunpage) : every 2-4 days or so, and yet it attracts many likes and comments per post. You can at least count a bare minimum of 1 000 likes and 60 comments per post. 

Why this success? The graphic quality of Oasis' marketing campaigns does have an important share in that, but my belief is that Oasis has understood what social networkers want from them : humour. All the non-socialmedia ads of Oasis are based on fun and humour and the same tone is conveyed through their Facebook page. 

A subtle technique : using the news

Two examples, inspired from the very recent victory of Jean Dujardin, first French actor to ever win the Oscar of the best actor. 

Oasis- The Poirtist

Ernie the hedgehog is back - The Grattist

Personalize your content

When you are a brand, you have to produce content in order to maintain a certain level of attention from your fans, but you also have to thank your fans. Many brands today don't hesitate in thanking frequently their fans, by posting phrases such as "thanks for being so many to like our page" in their weekly posts. Some brands go further and make dedicated fan-thankyou actions. 

These type of operations can be adressed to the community of fans as a whole  or search maximum individualization. Here are two examples:

Heinz's thank you post after reaching their 50 000th Facebook fan

Oasis' thank you after reaching 2 million Facebook fans. 

For this operation, Oasis created a special application, which took your profile picture and included it in a portrait starring a fruit of the brand and a thank you note. 

Create a competition between social networkers

The principle here would be using first the network of social networkers already fans of a brand, and the buzz potential of a brand to create a truly interactive contest. This could be for example a photo contest in which fans have to take pictures of themselves with a product of the brand in order to win the prize, with the condition that the picture with the maximum number of likes on Facebook wins the contest. 

Why does this work? Because fans who play the game become highly involved in the contest and generally motivate a high number of their Facebook friends in order to win the contest.

And thanks to a virality effect, assuming the brand has done previous efficient communication, the site and contest attracts thousands of curious people. 

My example: the Heinz Art Challenge

The challenge: draw online, with virtual ketchup, a composition of your choice on a plate in order to win the printing of your drawing on 3 unique plates. 

List of winners of the contest 

 Ad for the promotion of the Heinz Art Challenge 

However, there is a danger of non-implication of those fans and a risk of a very ephemeral relationship. Which is why brands should not only use contests in order to create traffic on their Facebook pages and should vary their initiatives. 

Thanks to all of you readers who contribute to my pleasure in writing this blog. Don't hesitate to answer to the posts, give your advice or disagree with me. Debate is highly encouraged !