How many fans does a good Facebook page have?

This question is asked a lot in various formats, it might be:

• How many “Likers” do I need before I start seeing sales results?
• How many before they start responding to my posts?
• How many do I need before I start seeing an increase in website traffic?

The list goes on.

If you have asked yourself or a friend any of these questions I have to disappoint you here and say that there is no magic number. I know, it sucks!

The reason I say that there is no magic number is that it really depends on…

• The business and whether it is a product or service.
• The quality of the posts.
• The people who Like the page.
• How often said Likers go onto Facebook.
• How passionate said Likers are about your business/product/service.

To give you an example on the Social Rabbit Facebook page I had people telling me in person “I love the page and the content”, but frustratingly they never commented on the posts or even posted that they loved the content. It wasn’t until I hit about 3,500 Likers that interaction started to improve, now I know that is a lot of peeps, but that number will vary from page to page. Only 23% of pages actually have more than 1,000 Likers so really don’t get hung up on it, as you can see below.

Rather than focusing on the number of Likers on your page focus on the quality of Likers, for example if your business is a printers then you really only want people on your page who are interested in the print industry or use a printer. The rest of the people are “nice to haves”, but if they are not really interested in the topic they are unlikely to interact (your mum might be different to this!)

So, instead of worrying about how many people are on your page and thinking up ways to get more, focus on great content and engaging those who you have. Think about it in the offline world, if you go to an event and there is a group of people all chatting together having a good time, you want to be part of that. Create that on your page.

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com, founder of Social Rabbit – your guide in the world of social media www.Facebook.com/SocialRabbit and author of ‘Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business’. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.