If you haven’t already noticed, Facebook has killed the Suggest to Friends Button on Fan pages for users and I’m saddened to say, it’s not coming back. While this “button” still appears on the pages of which I am an admin, it doesn’t work…trust me I’ve tried. The invitations are never sent to the hundreds of pals you manually clicked (another annoying feature of the book) so don’t blame your slow growing fan numbers on your lack of popularity; your pals just never got the invite.
Reports say that the button will come back (start working again) for admins, allowing them to suggest their own page to their personal connections, but it’s not working yet. This update will certainly decrease the Facebook suggestion ‘spam’, but it also makes it a lot more difficult to reach your pals.
Now your options are limited to a few main methods (especially until admins are able to suggest again):
1. Sending messages to 20 max friends at a time with a facebook url in the body of the message.
2. Posting with an @ link in your personal status and hoping it appears interesting enough for your connections to take action and like the page.
3. Facebook Ads (which by the way, cost 40% more this year)
In short, get creative. Send out a Social Eblast to your friends and family explaining what your page is and why they should support it. Print business cards with your facebook and twitter url on them…or perhaps even with a QR Code linking directly to your Facebook fan page. Likes are harder to come by these days. Bottom line so get those creative juices flowing and the likes will soon follow.