We manage dozens of Facebook business pages, we mange advertising spend, creative and delivery for many others and create content for business in Aberystwyth, Cardiff and all over Wales and the UK. We think we know Facebook quite well.
You're on Facebook right? You have a business so you have a Facebook business page right? There are billions of Facebook users, millions of Facebook pages but still only 24 hours in a day and there's only so much content a human being can consume in a period of time. This is where understanding Facebook, and understanding what is under the hood of Facebook really plays a part.
The Facebook news feed has been a hot topic for many many months, it has had publishers and marketing mangers up in arms with so many asking "what has happened to my reach??"
Basically Facebook has tweaked it's algorithm, so we see more of our friends and family and less of the news, less fake news and less from business pages. We have some Facebook tips from December right here
Let's break it down, you have friends on Facebook, you have really close friends. These close friends will show up more often and towards the top of your news feed, why? Because when you like each others photos, tag each other in posts; the Facebook robots see that you're close, even the friends you message often will appear further up the feed. Makes complete sense.
Here’s a quick overview of how the Facebook News Feed works, according to Adam Mosseri, VP of Product Management for News Feed.
This same principle applies to business pages, if you like a certain pages content, or interact with the content, even click through the link on their post; facebook learns from this and you will see more of this pages content in the future. Each piece of content will also be ranked with other business pages content that you like to see which is more relevant to you.
THE BIG PROBLEM! Business pages can shoot themselves in the foot and get themselves down ranked too, meaning the page will appear to less people less of the time. You know what that means, goodbye organic reach!
One of the big no no's from Facebook is clickbait or engagement bait posts, Facebook wants you to share content and tag other users in interesting content BUT what is doesn't want is publishers and pages to TELL you to tag, to share and to like. You've all seen the posts that do this. Tut tut! (below is an example of Facebook scoring posts relevant to you)
Say for instance a page does a LIVE video (Facebook loves live video) and in the post and the video the page asks people to like and share this content and like and share the page plus tag your friends blah blah. The post will be shared hundreds of times, liked hundreds of times and be watched by over 1,000 people, GREAT!! You would think. WRONG!!
After doing this, especially after being a repeat offender the future posts of this page will suffer, badly!! Say for instance (and this is just my guess at the scoring system) that Facebook scores everything 0 - 100, your friends will automatically be scored 90 - 100, the better the friend the higher the score between you and that friend. The pages you see in your feed will be high scorers too based on your relationship with the page (liking posts, sharing organically etc), but no matter what your relationship with the page, if that page is a guilty of engagement baiting or other no no's; it will struggle to score above 10 and probably won't appear in ANY news feeds!! That sucks!!
So, before you do a like and share competition or click baiting post etc, is your business page reach really worth it? Is it worth having 200 extra page likes and then having a next to nothing reach on future posts?? We don't think so, below are some handy do's and don'ts for your Facebook page. One thing to definitely do on your page is be you, be genuine and interact with anyone who interacts with you or your page; be social.
Facebook loves…
Posts with lots of Likes, comments, and shares
Posts that receive a high volume of Likes, comments, or shares in a short time
Posts that are Liked, commented on, or shared by one’s friends
Post types that one interacts with often
Videos uploaded to Facebook that receive a large number of views or extended viewing duration
Posts that are timely or reference a trending topic
These are a no thank you…
Clickbait
Like-baiting
Posts that include spammy links
Posts that are frequently hidden or reported (a sign of low quality)
Posts that ask for Likes, comments, or shares
Overly promotional content from Pages—pushing people to buy an app or service, pushing people to enter a contest or sweepstakes, posts that reuse the same text from ads