How to Use Facebook to Build Your Email List
By Jess Webb

Facebook can be a fabulous tool for building your business, finding new customers and even building your email list. IF you know how to use it.
It’s all fine and good to get lots of fans on Facebook, but chances are most of those fans don’t read your updates. You probably get lost amongst all the other stuff coming through on Facebook. So it’s not a very reliable way to keep in touch with your audience, especially when you have something that you really want them to see and read!
Another problem with just building up your Facebook fans is that you do not own and control Facebook. If they should ever decide to shut your page down, or if Facebook ceases to exist, or if they change things and it affects your page, you are simply out of luck. You could lose your page and all those fans that you have worked so hard to get!
Instead, I recommend using Facebook as a tool to build your email list. Your list is owned and controlled by you, so you can’t lose your fans if Facebook does something. Plus, it’s a lot easier to get someone’s attention with an email, and your audience will be more likely to receive and read your messages if they are coming to their email inbox, instead of floating through the news feed on Facebook.
I use a 2-step strategy to compel people to become a fan AND signup with their email address. This way, you still get to build your fan base, and you also build your email list at the same time.
Here’s how it works:
You need to set up a custom welcome tab on your Facebook page and make it the default tab (which means any new people coming to your page automatically see this tab instead of the Wall).
Your custom tab can be designed however you want, and you should set it up so that it clearly says what you want people to do.
You will also need a free gift to give people, and for optimum results create something that can be broken up into two parts.
When people come to your Facebook page, you want to offer them one part of the gift for clicking Like and becoming a fan, then offer the second part if they sign up with their email address.
For example, if you were a health coach your free gift might be a free 5-day e-course about five simple habits that will boost your health and have you feeling better in no time. Your new fans would receive the first day when they click Like, and they could get the remaining four days by signing up with their email address.
This is the best strategy for turning Facebook fans into subscribers, and once they’re on your email list it will be much easier to turn them into paying customers down the road.
If you’re not sure how to set this all up, hire someone to do it for you. It will save you a TON of time and energy trying to figure it out on your own.