How To Grow Your Facebook Friends List
A commonly asked question in the social media marketing world today is, “how do I grow a Facebook Friends List without getting in trouble”. So I decided to share some things I’ve picked up from personal experience.
Originally I wanted to grow my friends list to grow a few Facebook (FB)groups. I found myself sifting through many bad suggestions, and even got in trouble for it a few times.
When you get in trouble for this (or a grocery list of other strikes on FB) the suspension penalty is known as “Facebook Jail”. When this happen FB strips your account of most major functions of the network. I’ve been in the FB Lockup for as little as 1 week, and as long as an entire month.
Before you even consider farming your friends list you should know that there are risks involved. FB Jail is just their way of warning you through disciplinary action. The ultimate penalty is having your account shut down completely.
If you’ve been using your account for years I suggest you create a backup to try this experiment with. Doing this has a downside though. Most people on FB will not accept a friend request from someone with a new account. Doing this with a newer account also makes it easier for the FB security bots to spot you.
There are many black hat tricks that can get you in trouble, or you’ll end up with a list filled with spammers from third world countries that will never engage. Third party like4like sites may seem like a fast way to grow a list, but you’ll later come to regret this tactic if you try it.
First you should understand that FB’s security isn’t run by a office building filled with humanoid workers. Getting in contact with a human FB rep for anything is near impossible. Everything is run by bots that follow an exact pattern. The better you understand the patterns, the easier it is for you to fly under their radar.
If you created a new account to try this experiment with, I recommend taking the time to class it up. Nobody is going to accept a request from someone they expect is a spammer or scammer. Add a profile image, cover banner, a few pics, fill in your bio section, and add a few updates.
Taking your time to make your account look as real as possible is very important. Letting your account mature at least a month is a good idea, but I’m sure most of you reading this don’t have a month to wait. Your looking to get started now. Newer accounts are more likely to get noticed by security, so you may have to be a bit more careful.
If your using an older account that already has friends it will be a little easier to start. If its a new account you may want to start slow with some real friends. Send them a message to let them know who you are if its not obvious.
Here is one of the most important information nuggets. You usually want to only send to people you have Mutual Friends with, or limit how many non-mutual friend request you send a day. This is the #1 thing that will get you noticed on the FB bots radar, and very few people are likely to accept without common friends.
The advice I’m sharing is all from personal experience. It is not a get rich with friends quick scheme. While there are methods to grow much faster, all of them that I have found are either risky or will give horrible results.
I’m not sure if this next tip is fact, but I’ve heard it said several times, and seems about right. They say the FB security bots only hold the friend request sending data for 24 hours. If you get a couple warnings its always best to give whatever your doing a rest for the day.
Starting is always tricky. Getting your first 500 friends may take a little patients. Losing that patients has serious penalties, and you can’t really cry about it if you get caught. Conduct this experiment with common sense and you should be alright.
Once you get going it gets easier to track down mutual friends. You can check groups, your friends friend lists, or FB friend suggestions. The higher the amount of mutual friends you have, the more likely they’ll be to accept. You wanna try to stick to one or two niches, and look for people promoting stuff. Most people promoting anything will except a request from anybody they think is real.
Here is one of the other most important things most people miss. FB has a hidden option to delete unanswered friend request. Most users don’t even know it exist. Letting your unanswered request build up to high is a surefire way to get noticed.
I’ve never heard anybody mention exactly how many unanswered friend request you can have built up before you get penalized, or even heard an estimate. From my own experimenting I try not to let it exceed 200 requests. Before I start the sending process, my first step is to delete around 100 requests. I try to not exceed sending 100 in a 24 hour period. At first you might want to start lower.
Where To Find This Remove Sent Requests Option
- Click icon that looks like 2 people, the one new friend request show up on
- Click on Find Friends
- Click on View Sent Requests
- You may have to refresh after round 1 of removing to see all
Take your time building your list. If you speed through this process, and can end up with an un-engaged friends list. Don’t send requests to just anybody. Send to the type of people you’d like to connect with, and then reach out once they accept.
No matter what niche your trying to grow in, or your motives behind why, Facebook is where the magic happens. I used my own personal account for growing my first friends list, and I’m very happy I did now. I’ve made so many cool friends, and networking connections to boot. Its really helped open a lot of doors. The patients paid off big time. At first it was very tedious, and I thought I’d never make it through. Now I couldn’t be happier with the results, and hopefully have helped you learn something new.
Recap
- Start Slow, its not a race.
- Send to mutual friends.
- Delete unanswered Requests.
- Don’t let unanswered request build to high.
- if you get 2 warnings or more, chill for 24 hours.
- Limit how many requests you send a day.
- Try to only send to people you have mutual friends with.
- Only send to people you really want to connect with.
- Look for people promoting stuff.
- Use common sense!!!
I hope my recommendations here helps your quest in free social media marketing tactics. I’m a pioneer of the online plains myself, and know the daily struggle. Remember that FB frowns upon friend farming, and doing this can get you in trouble. My article here only is for the purpose of sharing what has worked for me. Try it at your own risk.
