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Making The Most Of Facebook

Many of you use Facebook to promote your services and products. A very successful social marketing guru friend of mine sent me this last week and after I checked it out I thought I’d pass it on:

Facebook News Feed Ranking Algorithm Update: Facebook recently shared more details on the factors that determine which posts qualify as high-quality content in order to get the best organic reach in the News Feed of fans. What does this mean?

First, Facebook surveyed thousands of people and then developed a new “machine learning system to detect content defined as high quality.” Hm! This new system (part of the News Feed ranking algorithm) uses a whopping 1,000+ different factors! Woa! Facebook revealed just three of them; see below, along with tips I’ve added to help boost your success rate:

1) How frequently a Page’s posts are reported as low-quality (e.g. hiding posts in the News Feed or reported as spam)

TIP: You *must* check your negative feedback on each Page post on a regular basis.

Go to your Insights -> click Posts -> click on the title of each post to view the “scorecard”.

in the lower right you’ll see the 4 types of negative feedback (Hide Post, Hide All Posts, Report as Spam, Unlike Page). The higher the numbers, the more likely your posts are missing the mark with your fans. It could be the content is not relevant, not interesting, or too frequent, and you’ll need to adjust accordingly. By the way, it’s normal to have a *small* amount of negative feedback; you can’t always get it 100% right. It’s similar to when people opt in to your email list then later unsubscribe and report as spam. They just forgot they’d signed up!

facebook post insights

2) How fully a Page’s profile has been filled out.

TIP: Go to your Admin Panel and check all the fields under your “Page Info” section. Be sure to fill in any blank sections and round out with as much keyword rich content as possible. (This also helps with your SEO).

3) Whether your fan base overlaps with other known high-quality pages.

TIP: Create an Interest List with Pages that get consistent high engagement (likes, comments, shares) + fan growth. Monitor and study what’s working. Also, consider placing ads targeting the fans of these pages in order to increase your own Page likes. For instructions on how to create an Interest List (which can be private, if you wish), see this post.

For sample Interest Lists, you might want to check these out:

◆ Facebook Experts & Resources

◆ Social Media Marketing Resources

◆ Inspiration/Spiritual

In addition to Interest Lists, you might also use a third-party analytics company. See this post for details.

Facebook says focus on these tips when creating your Page posts:

facebook tips

1. Make your posts timely and relevant – what is the news of the day? Think of yourself as a reporter or a newspaper — what’s the breaking news right now?

2. Build credibility and trust with your audience – the best way to build trust is to NOT push or advertise your services. Use the law of attraction–and create “pull” not push.

3. Ask yourself, “Would people share this with their friends or recommend it to others?” — the best content to post is something that already is going viral. Share it off that page and you will see your edge rank soar.

4. Think about, “Would my audience want to see this in their News Feeds?” — Or would YOU want to see it in your news feed? If it’s boring, self serving, blatantly promotional or contains words like “sale”, “save”, “buy” or “discount” trust me, people will tune you out.

If you want your fans to share and engage, try posting entertaining, informative or enlightening content — beautiful photos, humor, inspirational quotations. Tell a story about your brand, one post at a time. Never promote.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicolay H. Kreidler is an entrepreneur and strategic consultant in the health and wellness space who focuses on turning around distressed businesses and re-positioning them for success.