Facebook for Cosplay: Part 1

I have had several people ask me the following question:

How do you grow a cosplay following on Facebook?

It seems weird to me that people ask me this since my Facebook page seems to be pretty slow growing as well. Even though I may not think I am the best person to answer this question I do realize that I can share what I do know. As I started to write the list of things I could tell you about it got pretty big, and I thought maybe I know more than I think. Therefore this is the first in a series of my tips on how to market your cosplay page on Facebook, so let’s get started.

Background

This week was a perfect time to start this because I just reached 1500 followers!

I started the journey with my Facebook page in August 2014. The only thing I knew then was that I had fallen in love with cosplay, and a Facebook dedicated page seemed to be the first step to taking myself seriously. It was a measure of accountability as well. If other people were expecting me to have updates then I would feel the pressure to continue to grow as an artist.

Goals

This is the first thing you need to understand when it comes to your page. You have to know what you expect of yourself. Is this page just for fun? You probably don’t care much how big your following is, and that’s fine! Maybe your goals are as simple as sharing the photos from your most recent con. I think the best way to help people understand what types of goals they should make is to share some of my past and current goals. Note that I have completely realistic goals, and goals that might mostly just be dreaming.

Past

• Reach 1000 followers within a year of starting my page. For me this was a way of saying that I have what it takes.
• 15 Cosplays in 2015.
• Complete my first commission piece.

Present/Ongoing

• Reach 2000 followers.
• Earn enough from commissioned cosplays to support my personal cosplay.
• Create albums for each of my cosplays.
• Create an album for cosplay comparisons to the actual characters.
• Stop making promises, and just do what I want.
• Reach 5000 followers in 5 years of cosplay.

Separation

This is actually one of my pet peeves. Separation means that if you are serious about growing your following then you have to separate it from your personal profile. I’m not saying that you can’t also post cosplay related things on your personal profile, but I am saying that cosplay posts have to first get posted to your page. If you don’t post it to where your followers follow you then how do you expect them to see your content?

I don’t stop people from tagging my personal profile because I’m not ashamed of my cosplay, but when I’m the one making the post it goes on my page first. Your followers need content to feel compelled to follow you. I don’t think I can emphasize this enough.

That’s all for this week. I wanted to lay ground rules before jumping into the more detailed stuff. This has been my foundation. Has this been helpful so far? Is there anything specific you would like me to focus on in the upcoming posts? Leave a comment. Don’t forget to subscribe via email or Bloglovin’ to never miss a post!