Why all Facebook Business Page owners need to understand Edgerank

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Posted on February 12, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Did you know that even if someone Likes your Facebook Page, they may not see your posts in their news feed? According to Facebook, only 16-17% of fans are reached by Pages! Facebook apply an algorithm to choose what updates appear in each person’s news feed.

The news feed algorithm uses several factors to determine top stories, including the number of comments, who posted the story, and what type of post it is (e.g. photo, video, status update, etc.).

The exact nature of the algorithm is only known to Facebook and changes periodically. It is refer to it as Edgerank. The higher the Edgerank a post has, the more visible it will be.

The Edgerank score for a Page is calculated for each individual by:

The number of times you interact with a particular Page – i.e. the more you interact (like and comment) with a Page, the more posts from that Page will show up on your feed.
The importance a particular post by the amount of comments, shares and likes it gets – i.e. other people’s reaction to the post counts. If everyone shown a post ignores it, you will be unlikely to be shown the post. If everyone shown a post likes it, you will be very likely to shown the post.
Type of post it is: Your interactions with posts of the same type in the past will count – i.e. if you always like photos, you are more likely to see photos posted by the Page
How recently it has been posted – you are unlikely to see a post from the morning if you go online in the evening.
The number of complaints a Page receives will affect how likely you are to see future posts. Other negatives towards a Page would be a large number of unlikes, reporting as spam, unsubscribes and people hiding posts.

I have also noticed the following.

Facebook also seems to give a preference to content posted directly on Facebook rather than through a third party tool such as Networked blogs.
Facebook seems to help Business Pages to get established with greater visibility for Pages with a few Likes
It’s easier to build engagement on Pages with fewer likes. The ratio of Likes to “People talking about this” tends to be better.
You are more likely to see posts from Pages that you have recently liked.

Why is this important to Page Owners?

There is a virtuous spiral for engagement. The more engagement you get with each post, the more visible your post. The more visible your post, the more likely that you will get more engagement. Engagement is key.
Facebook has indicated that as preparation for Graph Search that Pages should “Focus on attracting the right fans to your Page and on giving your fans a reason to interact with your content on an ongoing basis.” This suggests that Edgerank is going to be taken into consideration for Search.
You need to be aware of negative behaviour towards your posts and your Page. Negative behaviour or complaints are when someone hides a post from their feed, unlikes a Page or reports a post as spam.

If you want more details about negative behaviour. I found this really good post by Chad Wittman on Socialfresh.com which goes into more detail: The simple reason Facebook Pages are losing Reach: Negative Feedback

What you need to know about negative behaviour or complaints

To find out how many people are unliking your Page, go into your Insights, click on the Likes section and scroll right down to the bottom.called Where your Likes come from. This shows your unlikes.
The greatest reason people give for unliking a page is too frequent posting.
Facebook has been taking complaints into consideration since September which is probably why many Pages have noticed a drop in numbers of people Reached.
Since my reach dropped in September, I have increased the number of posts per day which has been matched by an increase in the number of unlikes, so I have been shooting myself in the foot. Each time I have posted 4 times a day, I have lost someone.
Your complaints or negative feedback are more hidden. You have to export the data from your Facebook Page into a Excel Spreadsheet. You might be surprised by the figures. I haven’t looked at these figures before and I had naively assumed that nobody would be complaining about my Page - I don’t do things that are considered spammy like posting links on other people’s Pages, afterall. But I was wrong. I noticed that my complaints went up when I increased the frequency of posting. Another good reason to reduce the number of daily posts!
Photographs tend to get the highest number of shares, but they also get the highest number of complaints so don’t change all your posts to pictures because everyone else is doing it.

Let me know if this has helped you, I will be writing about how to improve the engagement on your Page soon.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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Facebook Pages: Help people discover your business

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Posted on February 3, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Facebook recently announced the introduction of what they call Graph Search. It means that the Search function on Facebook will be far more powerful than it is now. Graph Search brings with it some privacy issues, but also opportunities for businesses using Facebook as a marketing tool.

Over 150 million people a day visit Business Pages, let alone those people who see Business Page updates via their news feed.

With Graph Search, people can search Facebook by looking for things like “Italian restaurants that my friends have been to in London”, “hotels in Paris” or “Business Pages my Friends have Liked”.

Facebook recommends that you make sure your information on your Page is up to date.

When was the last time you checked what you have on your information Page?

They also recommended the following:

The name, category, vanity URL, and information you share in the “About” section all help people find your business and should be shared on Facebook.
If you have a location or a local place Page, update your address to make sure you can appear as a result when someone is searching for a specific location.
Focus on attracting the right fans to your Page and on giving your fans a reason to interact with your content on an ongoing basis.

Tips for updating your Page

Your name
Category
Vanity URL
the “About” Section
Photos (even though this isn’t explicitly mentioned by Facebook, you will be able to search for photographs)

Your Page Name

You can only change the name of your Page if you have fewer than 200 Likes.
Make sure it includes your Business name
Keep it short, but add descriptive words to help your customers find you e.g. your location or type of business.

The Category

Categories didn’t play an important role before now, but they are going to play a role in Graph Search, so check that you are in the best category possible for your business
You can change categories easily in the Basic Information tab.
Different categories allow you to fill different information in about your business for example Shop opening times or payment options. The category will affect how much space you in the “About” section.

Vanity URL

Make sure you claim your username for your Page so you can be found in search.
If you want to know how to claim your vanity URL or username, I have covered this in this post: Facebook Pages: How to claim your Facebook Vanity URL

About Section

Depending on the category you choose you have about 165 characters to say what your page is about.
If you were visiting your Page for the first time and read your About section, would you know what your business was about?
Add your website at the start of the about section and remember to include the http:// to make it a clickable link. (You won’t be able to do this if you have chosen local business as a category)
The About Section gives the meta description for your Page so make sure it contains your keywords.
Check that your About section can be read as a whole and isn’t truncated.

Photographs

People will be able to search for photographs
Make sure you tag your photographs on your Page with your Page Name
Click on the photograph and look for the Tag Photo option below it.
Click on the photo
Start typing you Page name and your page will appear in the drop down section, click on your Page name.

I will be writing a few blog posts in the next few days to help you prepare your Pages for Graph Search including:

Place Pages
Why you to know about Edgerank
Why you need to attract the right fans and build engagement

If you haven’t checked your Privacy Setting yet, please read this: Facebook Privacy: Who can see your Stuff?

Let me know if you would like to answer any questions.

Nicky Kriel

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How to merge two Facebook Pages for the same business

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

What do you do if you have two business Facebook Pages for the same business? I know quite a few businesses have found themselves in this position.

Perhaps, in a flourish of enthusiasm a Facebook Page was created and then forgotten about and then year of two later another Page was created.
Or, perhaps you thought that it was a good idea to have two separate Pages for your business, but realised that you only have the resources to manage one.
Or, sometimes customers create a Facebook Place by checking-in to the business before it has a Page. (If you want to find out more about Facebook Places, I have covered it in this post: How to get a Facebook Place for your local business.)
Or, someone outside the business has set up a Facebook Page in your Business. You will need to claim the Page first before you can merge it. Here’s how to do it: Facebook Help – Claiming a Page for your Business

If you want to get merge your duplicate Facebook Pages, this is what you do:

Rules for Merging two Pages

You may merge two Pages if they represent the same thing and have a similar name
You can only merge the Page with fewer Likes into the the Page with more Likes
The only thing transferred from the Page with fewer Likes is the Likes and Check-ins
All photographs, wall posts and the username for the Page with fewer Likes will be permanently deleted
The Page with more Likes will look the same but include the extra Likes and Check-ins
If you want to merge to Pages with a location make sure that they have the same address before you start

Back up

Before you start, I highly recommend you back up the Page with fewer Likes in case there is information or photographs that you want to keep.

I use SocialSafe to back up all my Social Media accounts. They have a 60 day free trial for up to four accounts – and it is easier to use to use their system than to try to it manually. SocialSafe saves the following: fans, profile, photos, events, status updates to your computer.

If you have Milestones, make sure you screen capture them to make sure you transfer all of them. At the moment there is no way to save these or transfer this information so you will need to add them manually to the combined Page.

How to merge your Pages

Go to the Page with more Likes. This is the one that you will be keeping.
Go to Edit Page
Select Update Info
Go to the Resources Tab
Click on Request to Merge duplicate Pages
(If you don’t see it use this link Request to Merge duplicate Pages)
A dialogue box will show you the Pages you manage that qualify to be merge. Select right Pages.
The Page with fewer Likes will be permanently deleted from Facebook and you cannot undo the merge.

If you found this post of merging duplicate Facebook Pages useful, please share it with other people in your social networks.

Nicky Kriel

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Do you back up your Social Media accounts?

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Posted on January 20, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Have you ever thought about what would happen if Facebook shut down to all your photographic memories? Or what you would do if your LinkedIn account was suspended and you couldn’t access your contacts? Or imagine if someone hacked into your Twitter account and they changed the password and username overnight? Could you prove that it was your account? So, have you ever thought of backing up your Social Media accounts?

If you are using Social Media for marketing your business, you need to consider backing up your Social Media data. The benefits are:

You can keep a record of all your updates and Tweets
You have a record of your connections, friends, likes and followers
Makes conversations easier to find
You can review your past activities
Your memories are yours to keep especially your photographs

Now, when I first looked into backing up my Social Media accounts, it sounded incredibly complicated. You had to do a separate thing for each account and it relied on me remembering to manually back up each account from time to time. I tend to be a bit useless at manually backing up anything. [Note to self: Must remember to back up my mobile telephone numbers!] It’s always something that I feel that I should do, but avoid doing because ….

….it’s not that exciting and I can think of thousands of things to do instead.

I have since found a far easier solution. I have been using SocialSafe for a while now and it automatically backs up

my Facebook profile,
my Social Media for Newbies Facebook Page,
my Twitter account,
my LinkedIn account and
my Google+ account

Each day without me doing anything other than switch the computer on.

I love the ease of use, their help desk is very friendly and it is very affordable. If you are considering backing up your Social Media accounts, you can do if for free by manually backing up each site or using a series of tools, but I thought it would be silly not to tell you about SocialSafe if you are like me and don’t want to think about it.

I don’t spend much time referring back to my past but I have found it reassuring knowing that it is all there.

Some things that I have use it for

Checking DMs, Twitter has an annoying habit of only showing the last 20 DMs and I often receive contact information from clients via DM
Checking conversations with a particular person. It will show all the conversations across different Social Media platforms.
Finding testimonials

They have a 60 day free trial so you really have nothing to lose if you want to try it out for yourself.

I would love to hear your thoughts about backing up your Social Media. Have you thought of doing it? Or are you already backing up your accounts?

Nicky Kriel

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Facebook Privacy: Who can see your posts?

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Posted on January 17, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Are you letting just a few friends see your updates or can the whole world see them? In this post, which is the second in a series about Facebook Privacy, I will show you how to adjust your Privacy settings for your posts and put your Facebook Friends into lists so that you be in control of what other people see about you.

Did you know that when you update your Facebook status, you can choose who can see your posts?

Public

Public means that anyone searching for you on Facebook will be able to see your post.
Facebook has just announced that it is improving its search function by introducing what they call “Graph Search”.
This means that your posts might become more visible.
What many people don’t realise is that anyone who subscribes to your feed (now known as followers) will see all your Public posts in their feed.
Anyone who has requested to be your friend will automatically become a follower and see your public posts in their feed whether you have agreed to be friends or not.
I believe that with the new Graph Search, you will be able to do a search on your Followers as well.
Facebook Pages are automatically set as public

Friends

Means that only people that you have accepted as Friends will be able to see these posts EXCEPT
In the ticker where Friends of Friends can see the post if your Friend comments on it. The ticker shows your Friends activities.
The ticker moves fairly rapidly and is in real time, so within a short time after your friend has commented on your post, it won’t be visible anymore.

If you have only accepted people you know on Facebook as Friends, you can ignore the rest of this post, but if you are like so many Business owners who are using their Facebook Personal Profile as a way to network, then read on.

What to do if you have a mixture of Friends, Acquaintances and Strangers as your Facebook Friends

Either delete anyone who isn’t a true friend…

Categorise your Friends into Lists

How to put Friends into lists

Look down the left hand column of your Home Page
Find the section called “Friends”
Hover your cursor to the left of the word and the word “More” will appear
Click on “More”
Facebook will already have created some categories for you and you can create your own

You can create your own lists, but if you want to keep things simple:

Put Strangers, business colleagues and anyone that you don’t want to see your personal posts as “Acquaintances”

Facebook allows you to post to “Friends except Acquaintances”
You can limit the frequency of posts that you see from these people

Put your Close Friends and Family as “Close Friends”

You will see more of their posts
You can post more personal posts just to this group.

Tip: When you accept new people as Friends get into the habit of putting them on a list.

Don’t forget to choose your Privacy settings for your Posts. Once you change it, the default posting will stay the same until you change it again.

This is the second in the series of blogs that I am writing about Facebook Privacy. The previous post was Facebook Privacy: Who can see your Stuff?

Would love to have your comments about this post, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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Facebook Privacy: Who can see your Stuff?

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Posted on January 17, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

How well do you know your Facebook Privacy settings? When was the last time you checked them? Facebook has just announced the introduction of Graph Search. It means that people will be able to search Facebook in a far better way. It is about time because at the moment Facebook Search is really bad. I know so many business owners who couldn’t even find their own Facebook Page when they searched for it! According to a Facebook press release:

“It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook,”

Do you know what is visible on Facebook about you?

It is always amazing how many people don’t know the basics about their Privacy Settings. It is always worth checking your Privacy settings each time Facebook brings in a new change and if you haven’t checked yours recently I suggest you do this today:

Go to your Privacy Settings

Click on “Who can see my stuff” and have a play. You might be surprise what people can see about you.

There are three areas to look at:

Who can see my future posts?
Where can I review my posts and all things I’m tagged in?
What do other people see on my Timeline?

In the next post I will cover “Facebook Privacy: Who can see your Facebook Posts“. Let me know if you have any specific questions about your Facebook Privacy.

Nicky Kriel

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Facebook: How to set up an Event on your Facebook Page

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Posted on January 2, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Do you want to set up a Facebook Event to promote your business? And you want to do it through your Facebook Page rather than your Personal Profile. One of my clients asked me how to do this recently. It is very simple if you know how, but can leave you frustrated if you don’t! So here is a simple guide how to add an event to your Facebook Page.

Step 1

Click on the downward arrow to the right of your Tabs.

Step 2

If you have already added an event click on the “Events” Tab

If you haven’t click on the plus sign on one of the squares with and choose “Events” from the dropdown menu. Then click on the “Events” Tab.

Step 3

Click on the “Create Events” button at the top right hand corner.

Step 4

Fill in the event details, you can edit them in the next step

Step 5

Fill in the information accurately and clearly for your event

Remember to add a picture for the event
Make sure that all the location details are included.
Don’t forget to add a URL if you want them to register for the event or visit a website for more information
Make it very obvious what you want people to do when they see the invitation to the event.

Step 6

Promote the Event, by Sharing it on Facebook. The cog symbol on the right will give you a drop down menu. Take a look at all the options that are available to you. Don’t forget to join the event as your Profile so that your Friends can see your activity.

Step 7

Move your Events tab so that it appears in the first four tabs on your Page. You do this by clicking on the downward arrow to show all the tabs. When you hover over the Events tab, a pencil will appear in the top right corner. Choose the “Swap position with: Likes” to move it into a more dominant place.

So now you know how to add an Event to your Facebook Page. Don’t forget to share this post with your Friends who have Facebook Pages, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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Facebook Pages: How to see who has liked your Facebook Business Page

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

If you are using Facebook Pages to market your business and wondering how to see who has liked your Page, then you will find this helpful.

In the Admin Panel, you can see who has recently liked your Page.

Click on “See All” as indicated below.

You will then see the following:

You can scroll down to see all the Personal Profiles who have liked your Page
You can change the default setting to show which Pages have liked your Page
You can add administrators to your Page

Other things you should know about likes:

The number of likes is visible to everyone.
To see the basic analytics (or Insights) for any Page, click on the Tab showing the number of likes for that Page.
To get to know your fans better use the Facebook Insights section of your administration panel. If you want to learn how to use the insights to find out more about the people who have liked your Page, you will find this post useful. Facebook Insights: How to use it to get to know your fans
Only likes by Profiles count in the total number of likes for the Page. Pages who have liked your Page don’t count.
Each Facebook user will have see different figures for the number of Friends who have liked the Page.

Let me know if you have found this useful by leaving a comment. Thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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Facebook Tip: How often to update your Facebook Business Page

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

If you have a Facebook Page that you are using for business, you may be wondering how you should be updating your Page. Well, it depends…

Sorry, I know you that you probably want a more definite answer but the answer is not a simple number. It is a balancing act between posting too frequently and not enough. So here are a few questions you need to ask yourself:

1. How often you can commit to updating your Page a week?

If you are starting out 3 times a week may be a big stretch for you, but if you use Social Media all the time you may be able to commit to posting 3 times a day.

Think about what is realistic for you to do on a consistent basis. Social Media is a marathon not a sprint, so you need to be able to maintain your activities over a long period of time. It is better to start slowly and increase your frequency of updates over time than start with a spurt of activity and then stop because you become overwhelmed with it all.

2. How often do you think you can produce good quality engaging updates?

Having a clear idea of what content you are going to share on Facebook will help you to collect great articles, YouTube videos and pictures for your Page so that you can plan your content in advance.

Remember: You are more likely to get more fans when you give your fans content that is relevant to them.

Get the balance right between too frequent posting and not posting enough

The biggest reason people give for unliking a Page is too frequent posting! Most people are on Facebook to be connected with their friends and family, they don’t want their feed to be filled with what they consider spam. It is not that they mind being connected to your business page, they just don’t want to miss their friends news because their News Feed is filled with your stories.

On the other hand, if you post too infrequently, you are unlikely to get much activity on your Page and your visibility of your Page will be low. Posts might not be seen even by people who liked your Page.

Did you know that even if someone has liked your Page, they may not see your posts because of the Edgerank system that Facebook uses? Read the following post to find out more about how to increase your visibility. 5 Facebook Tips to increase your Visibility

The number of friends your fans have will also have an impact on the frequency that you can post. If your fans have liked a large number of Pages and have loads of friends, they will probably not see your post unless you post very frequently. If your fans have only a few friends and a few Pages they are very likely to unlike your Page if you post too frequently. You will only get the balance right by getting to know your Fans.

So what do you do?

There is no absolute figure for how many times to post on Facebook, it really depends on your business. SocialBakers suggest the optimum posting is 5-10 times a week.

If you post more than once a day, I would suggest you leave at least a few hours between posting.
If you post once a day, I would suggest you think of posting at the time your audience is most likely to be using Facebook.

The best way to find out how often to post is:

Get to know the analytics for your Page.

Facebook Insights makes it really easy to see how effective you are on Facebook, but you need pay attention to what the figures are telling you and be willing to experiment to see what works for your Page.

(You need to have 30 Likes on your Page before you can see your Insights)

Test and Measure.

If you have a new Facebook Page and post three times a week

Test which days of the week give you the best response
Test which times of the day give you the best response.

If you post once a day.

Test the time that you post and see if that improves the reach for your post.
Test posting twice a day and see whether it increases the activity and likes for your Page or has a neutral or negative impact.

If you post more than once a day

Test which types of post give you the most response.
Test which times of the day give you the most visibility
Test what happens if you only post once a day (at the best time)
Test to find at what point people start to unlike your Page.

On Social Media for Newbies I tend to post every day, but I have found that twice and up to three times a day works for me because I have fans in different time zones. First thing in the morning gives me the best response with UK people. Early afternoon and late afternoon gives me a good response with American people. Late evening tends to get me very little response.

Personally, I would rather post when I find a good quality article to share than just because I have to. While I have seen good results from posting more frequently, I cannot do it consistently because time is a precious resource to me as a business owner and sometimes earning money gets in the way of being prolific on Facebook. The point is to use Facebook as a tool for marketing my business, not to be good at Facebook.

Let me know what works for you by leaving a comment below.

Nicky Kriel

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Nicky Kriel | Social Media Coach & Trainer | Social Media for Business

Inspiring you to grow your business through Social Media

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