We’ve previously discussed search engine optimization (SEO) and have written blog posts about the Google algorithms that decide what kinds of content appear first in search engine results. Today we shift the focus to social media algorithms—specifically Facebook—and show you how to audit your current social media strategy and make adjustments to increase your visibility on your audience’s feed.
(Related: 5 Ways to Make Facebook Worth the Effort)
Engaging customers and generating leads on Facebook boils down to a competition for attention. With 2.8 billion users, the competition is steep. Creating and posting content that is meaningful and engaging is critical but it’s only one part of a successful Facebook marketing strategy. In order to get that great content seen, there are a few things you need to do—and avoid doing—to get the traction you want.
Like most algorithms, Facebook’s algorithm is designed to learn user preferences and serve up content in their feed that they actually want to see. Unlike internet search engines, Facebook offers users the ability to customize what is seen in the newsfeed through settings and preferences such as hiding irrelevant content or prioritizing which pages you want to see first.
This is why relevance matters so much on social channels. You can’t just write what you want to write about, you must share content that your ideal customer wants to read. These aren’t always the same thing.
As a business, Facebook is looking to increase the amount of time people spend on their platform. To accomplish this, the Facebook newsfeed algorithm curates content that will keep users engaged and interacting with content as long as possible. Using a variety of criteria, Facebook evaluates and ranks content that will be the most meaningful and engaging to the user, largely based on previous actions taken by the user.
For example, if a Facebook user likes, shares, views a video; or clicks a link that you’ve shared, the algorithm measures and records their actions to determine which content to show them in the future. This is why it is so important to target your content for your ideal customer so they want to interact with it.
Sometimes—especially when a business is brand new to Facebook—it does make a lot of sense to boost posts to get more traction. Ever since Facebook launched the feed, marketers have worked tirelessly to game the system and employ tactics to get their content seen first. But ultimately Facebook has the majority rule and will give preference to paid posts.
The good news is, you can get a good bit of exposure for a relatively low price, especially when you really know your audience and have honed in on keywords that intersect your audience’s interests with the products and services you provide. Match that research with well-written content, interesting videos, or images, and a clever call to action, and you’ll see fresh momentum in your overall engagement.
Text-only posts will not get prioritized by Facebook algorithms and are likely never to be seen. Always match text with an image, or better yet, a video. It takes a few extra steps but it will make a difference in how many people see your content.
You can use free sites like Unsplash for stock photos. If there isn’t a photo that makes sense with your content, use a service like Canva to create a quote to go with your text. If you are active on other social media sites like Twitter, you can also create an image of a Tweet and share that on Facebook with a bit of added context.
As mentioned above, Facebook wants to keep people on Facebook. So when creating content that you plan to post across platforms, take the time to create the content that lives on Facebook. For example, if you publish a YouTube video, don’t just post the link to YouTube because that takes people away from Facebook. Upload the video from your hard drive to Facebook so that users can view the video without leaving the platform.
If you have a blog post you want to share, consider breaking it up into a series of posts that you share on Facebook with quote images you create from the main points of the blog. You can still add links to original content, but do the extra legwork to increase the time people spend reading your content on Facebook as opposed to clicking links that take them to other websites.
Video content is a sure way to stop the scroll and get your customer’s attention. We specialize in making brand videos for social media campaigns and would love to help you build a strong library of video content to share on Facebook. If this is something you need, please let us know!
(Read More: Five Marketing Videos That Can Make You More Money)
One of the biggest mistakes new social media marketers make is that they forget to act natural. While there is a learning curve to communicating as a brand, it is critical to cultivate a brand voice that sounds personable and relatable. Remember that these are actual people on the other side of the screen, and craft content in both tone and approach, that would be appropriate if the exchange were happening in person.
For example, don’t go straight for the sale. You wouldn’t do that at a networking event. Leads will never immediately convert from cold to checkbook. Initiate conversations and respond thoughtfully. Nurture the relationship over time. If you push the sale too soon, you risk your messages being hidden by the user and future posts pushed down in priority by Facebook.
Before you make the investment in social media accounts for your business, understand that you also must have a plan in place to respond to messages. This may seem a bit obvious but many businesses don’t have a process for reading and replying to social media messages. Facebook will rate how quickly you respond and share that info with visitors to your page.
You absolutely must plan for this in advance so that your responses are quick and efficient. If you outsource this responsibility to a person on your team or a virtual assistant, be sure you provide them with talking points, FAQs, and any other relevant information that will help them meet customer’s needs.
You’ve all heard about clickbait, but let us introduce you to engagement bait. This is when Facebook content is clearly there only to initiate engagement. Posts such as “like this if you agree” or “tag someone who does this” are not posts that Facebook users want to see.
Engagement bait is a bit different than a natural call to action at the conclusion of a meaningful interaction. It is appropriate to lead your reader to take the next step, but it isn’t a smart idea to ask for the action without providing anything meaningful to go with it. These engagement bait-style posts don’t add value and are often ignored or hidden. Furthermore, Facebook algorithms do not give preference to pages that employ these kinds of tactics.
We understand that it can be confusing to make sense of all these moving pieces. We would be happy to audit your social media channels and make recommendations to help you improve or we can build and manage a digital marketing strategy that covers all forms of social media. Whatever you need help with, please feel free to contact us and let us know. Facebook can be an effective tool in your marketing toolbox, we’d love to help you make the most of it.