Saying It Social

Now People Can Join Your Facebook Fan/Business Page via SMS/Text Message

Just found out about a neat new way to get more “Likers” to your Facebook Page, via text message!

The best part is you can incorporate this method with your offline advertising.  Have a local radio spot? Tell your listeners to text “like username” to 32665, where “username” is the part of your Facebook Page’s URL that follows facebook.com/username. For example our Facebook Page is http://facebook.com/sayingitsocial so to “Like” our page via text message all you need to do is text “like sayingitsocial” (without the quotes) to 32665. 32655 is FBOOK, in case you were wondering.

There are a few stipulations. First, in order for someone to be able to do this, they need to have their mobile settings configured in Facebook. This can be done by going to your Account Settings and then the Mobile tab.  Don’t worry, you can opt out of this service at anytime! You will want to do this yourself if you want to become a fan of others’ pages via text.

Second, you have to have a custom URL for your page. You can get your custom URL once you reach 25 “Likers” by going to http://facebook.com/username and clicking on the link that says “Select a Username for Your Pages”. Please remember, if you have your current FB URL linked in your blog, email signature, website, etc etc…. you will need to find all instances of the link and change to your new URL.

This is very exciting news for the potential of getting new “Likes” to your Facebook Fan/Business Pages. Think of all of the places where you could say, “text like username to 32665.” We already mentioned radio spots; what about TV Commercials? Or at your next speaking engagement – wouldn’t it be fun to ask your audience to all take out their cell phones and send one text to instantly “Like” your page!? (By the way, standard text messaging rates apply per your wireless agreement, but there are no additional charges imposed by Facebook.) How about adding this piece to your elevator pitch? Imagine physically standing in an elevator, telling someone your 30 second spiel about what you do and then suggesting that they text to “Like” your page for more info.

You can also send this post to your Twitter followers for them to “Like” your Facebook page.

Twitter already has the capability for you to have people tweet to follow you. On Twitter all someone needs to do is text “follow username” to 40404 – go ahead give it a whirl – text “follow sayingitsocial” (no quotes) to 40404 to follow us on Twitter!

So what should you do now?

1. Go to your Account Settings and configure your Mobile Settings.

2. Go to http://facebook.com/username and choose your custom URL for your page.

3. Update all existing instances of your Facebook URL out on the web & in your email signature.

4. Start telling people to text “like username” to 32665!

Go ahead and try it out now by texting “like sayingitsocial” (no quotes) to 32665!

April 6, 2010 - Posted by AK Stout | Uncategorized | become a fan on facebook with text messages, facebook fan pages, facebook mobile settings, facebook text message notifications, how to get more fans to facebook fan page, how to text message to become a fan of a facebook business page, texting facebook, texting facebook fan pages, texting to follow on twitter