Here’s some bad news for you…
…Even if someone likes your Facebook Page, they may never see your Page’s status updates in their newsfeed.
Did you know that?
Unless your Business Page has a good Edgerank, it may not appear. So if your fans have never interacted with your Page other than to like it, it may never show on their News Feeds. Facebook uses an algorithm to decide what is a relevant story for you to see.
What is Edgerank?
Basically it is an algorithm that Facebook uses to decide which posts you are more likely to see. So you are most likely to see Pages with a high Edgerank and unlikely to see Pages with a low Edgerank.
The Edgerank score is decided by
- The number of times you interact with the other person or page
- how important that post is by the amount of comments and likes it gets
- how recently it has been posted
So how can increase your visibility of your Facebook Page?
1. Post manually
Facebook gives a higher rank to updates posted on Facebook than via a third party application like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or Networked Blogs. If you update your Facebook page automatically with Twitter, you are also going to have a lower ranking.
2. Post regularly
The frequency of posting will depend on the nature of your business. The biggest reason that most people unlike a page is because of too frequent posting, yet if you don’t post updates regularly, your page will have low visiblilty. You will need to test your audience.
Across the board it seems that 5-10 post a week is the optimum posting. Mari Smith who has over 40 000 fans has found her optimum posting is 2-3 times a day spread out throughout the day. When she posts more, her number of unlikes increases.
As a small business you may want to set a goal of posting at least once a day. If you post more frequently make sure there are several hours between postings.
3. Encourage interaction
Every time someone interacts with your Page it makes your Page visible to their friends. How many questions do you ask on your Facebook Page? When last did you do a quick poll? When last did you encourage your fans to post or comment on your Page?
Tips for asking questions
- Make the questions easy to answer. If you expect your fans to write essays, it is unlikely that you will get much response. Ask questions that need a one word or simple phrase as an anwer.
- Think about what is in it for them. Asking people to share their website or Page or blog generally will get a response. CAU, a new restaurant which has just opened in Guildford runs a competition where you have to find the cow each week and photograph it to get a chance of getting a free meal for two. Even though I haven’t rushed around Guildford looking for it, it still keeps me amused as to where the cow is going to turn up.
- Respond to people who answer the questions
4. Vary content
Variety is the spice of life so make sure you keep your content interesting and varied.
- Use Questions,
- post videos,
- photographs,
- interesting and relevant links
- post audio to your Page for free and easily using an tool such as Audioboo
- Something silly or entertaining.
5. Talk about your Page
It is amazing how many Page owners expect people to know about their Page without telling them about it. Make sure you tell your customers that have a Business Page by
- Adding it to your website
- adding it to your blog
- adding it to your signature
- Mention it in newsletters
- have it printed on your business card and literature
Promote your Page on your Profile by tagging your page, use @YourPageName to create a hyperlink to your Page.
Tweet about it
Tell people on LinkedIn about it. You can have three websites on LinkedIn, one of them can be your Facebook Page.
Tell people on Google Plus about it.
In fact, get into the habit of telling everyone about it.
What tips would you recommend to improve your visibility?
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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Whoa! YOUR POSTS ALWAYS PROVIDE SUCH RICH INFO. i knew about edgerank but not in enough detail to make a change in my visibility. Thanks, I will be making some changes now!
Extremely useful and insightful post, Nicky! I love that you point out the importance of posting manually, for sometimes the posts look like plain blueprints of blog post headlines or tweets. Including a clear CTA in the copy has shown considerable results for me in the past. It makes great sense to test how various types of content perform (photos see the highest interaction rate according to studies) and to experiment with different publishing times. 50% of clicks happen within 1 hour after posting: http://bit.ly/o7UJlt, so you would want to take advantage of the time when your audience is most active on Facebook. For insightful research about Facebook Edgerank factors, I’d like to point to Dan Zarrella – aka The Social Media Scientist: http://slidesha.re/cWFUXn. Main takeaway: keep it positive, short, simple!
Hi Beate
I love it when there is so much value added in the comments. Thank you for adding great points especially about testing which content performs the best and finding out the best time to post. I am a big fan of Dan Zarrella since I heard his presentation on this year’s Social Media Success Summit. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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Interesting as always, thanks Nicky. I get fed up of people who are posting every five minutes on both Facebook and Twitter, and unless they’ve got something really useful to say, they’re HISTORY!
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Thank you for all of your time & work. As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can be of assistance to me.
Awesome.. I hope it works for my page on facebook.. trying all the possible thing.. but i guess i have missed out on a lot of issues which you have covered on.. so will get back and let you know if it worked for me..
Hi Jean
Let me know how you get on. What do you think about the changes to the Facebook Page?
Nicky
Great! do tel me how you liked my page.. and please give me your feedback also
http://www.facebook.com/jeanswlove
will be looking forwrd for it
Jean, your cover has an arrow and the words like us which contravenes Facebook restrictions which means they could remove it. Read this http://www.nickykriel.com/blog/social-media/new-look-facebook-pages-3-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-cover/ I have liked your Page anyway.
Nicky
Great!! thanks for the like and also for that piece of advice, i wouldnt have even known the reason if fb had to jus take it off!!
any ways… thanks a lot and keep comin’ to our page..and spread your valuable info with us all the time… thanks a lot!!!!!!
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers!
I had another doubt, why are people jus disliking the page, its very strange… atleast 30 in less than 20 days..
Hi
There biggest reason people unlike a page is Posting too often. Social Baker says the optimum posting is about 5 times a week all though I would suggest posting daily. Mari Smith who has oodles of Fans (over 60 thousand of them) posts up to 3 times a day, she found that if she posted more frequently, the number of unlikes increased. She has a high level of engagement on her page. I think you would be better cutting down on your number of posts a day and concentrating on building engagement with your audience. The measure for this would be building up the number of people Talking About your Page. What do you want people who have liked your Page to do?
thanks! i really want to engage with my fans, but since the page was dead for a long time.. i tot of increasing my reach by posting a lot more, initially and then slowly reducing them… do you have any particular solution to it!
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I get the idea, now your details is fairly nicely to understand, I will save your net website.
My spouse and i appreciated your write-up.
good jobs—thanks for info
What a great post. Thank you and keep up the good work!
This blog is fantastic. Thats not really a really huge statement, but its all I could come up with after reading this. You know so much about this subject.
It’s really tough to make presence on facebook and increase the fan page likes but this post can help a bit for everyone who are new to facebook marketing. I really appreciate for sharing these tips with us.
Thank you Paul, it is lovely getting positive feedback x
Great article! Thanks for all your advice Nicki. I’ve just started out on FB and your info has been really useful
Thank you, Rich.