Do you scratch your head wondering why your last post reached 457 people and the one before was only seen by 8? Just 8!
One challenge you face when using Social Media for your business is conflicting opinions. The other is that agencies tend to take for granted that you know everything about Facebook. Just because we watch Social Media news all day, you must too right?
Ok, so you’ve probably noticed a huge swing this year in how many people see your updates on Facebook. It doesn’t seem to matter:
– What time of day you post
– Whether you use a video or an Image
– Whether you use a URL or not
– How long the update is
– What the topic is
One day you are reaching hundreds, the next you are struggling to reach double figures.
Welcome to EdgeRank
It’s not your fault (usually!). Facebook has grown so much and is used by so many that they have to protect you and curate what would otherwise be 1500 updates on your page each day, if everything was posted on your timeline from people and pages you liked.
So an algorithm was launched this year, unofficially called EdgeRank, something Facebook doesn’t really acknowledge.
I could give you a great, technical explanation, but these guys do it much better.
Here’s what it essentially means.
Facebook essentially takes a small % of your fans or friends and delivers your update to them. If a % of those people like, share or comment, it then drip feeds it out to more and more of your fans.
The bad news is that if half the people Facebook selected to receive the story are not on Facebook today, then the chances of the remaining amount of people hitting the magic number declines and your story or update is dead in the water.
The end of Facebook?
No, of course not! However you can do yourself a favour and increase your chances of increasing your reach, engagement & likes for your small business on Facebook by doing the following 3 things:
1) Post really interesting and engaging stuff! (That’s stuff your audience finds interesting!)
2) Review your Facebook Insights area. It has lots of data to help you pick the right time and content.
3) Use non-Facebook methods such as Twitter, Google+ & your own email lists to drive people to your Facebook post directly.
Our next blog will cover the use of Facebook Insights and Twitter’s Analytics, even if you aren’t considering advertising, taking a few minutes to learn more about your audience in hard numbers will pay dividends and grow your audience on Facebook.
Let me know what you think of today’s article, comment & share away. Be sure to check out our post on how to get more page likes on Facebook for free
Until next time, thank you for reading!
Written by:
Lee Kenny
CEO: Snowflake Media
Why your Facebook posts only reach 8 people