Did you know that most people who hit the “Facebook Like” button do not fly to the page? Your page may have thousands of followers (seguidores Facebook), but how many return to your fan page? How many actively participate?
Few people have the habit of going directly to a fan page; in general, they respond (or not) to the publication they see on their wall in what is called the “news feed” or “latest news.”
Now, the problem is that not everything you post on your fan page reaches the wall of your followers.
How???? Yes, it is the sad reality...
Facebook decides what will be displayed on the wall of your fans according to a mathematical algorithm called EdgeRank, which determines the relevance of your posts to each fan and, from there, decides what to show each one.
That algorithm combines three components: affinity, weight, and seniority. The relationship is between the person who published the content (note, photo, link, etc.) and you; the more you interact with a person (comments, likes, visits their profile, etc.), the more affinity they have, according to FB.
The weight refers to the importance of the note, photo, or link you posted; Thus, for Facebook, a comment has more weight than a “like” (of course, you have to “work” more to leave a statement than to press the “Like” button). And finally, there is the time component, that is, the time elapsed since the content was published; the longer the time, the less relevant it is for FB.
Thus these interrelated factors, in a formula that only Facebook knows, determine what is shown in the “latest news” of each.
Then What can we do so that our publications are shown on the wall of our fans? Well, the good news is that despite not knowing the EdgeRank formula, there are possibilities to optimize our publications so that they are displayed more.
Mari Smith, a recognized expert on the subject, suggests these seven points:
- Less is more
- Fewer characters per post
- Type of publication: photos, videos, links
- Use full links
- Choose the best time to post
- choose the best days
- Post Manually
- Less is more
Facebook is not Twitter.
One or two notes per day are more than enough on FB. If you post too much, you risk your fan will get tired and decide to delete your post (by pressing the cross that appears on the right every time you hover over a note).
Fewer characters per post
In practice, the posts that work best have no more than 80 characters. Remember, you are referring to them to read the note to your blog.
Post type
Not all post types produce the same results. Photos usually work better, as do videos or questions. It would help if you experimented as each audience is different.
Use full links
Facebook is three times more important to full links than shortened addresses.
For Facebook, this: Can a company function without bosses or hierarchies? It’s better than this: http://bit.ly/rr9dAR, even though it’s the same content, and we prefer the latter for Twitter.
Choose the best time of day to post
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. is usually the best time, but again you must experiment to see how your audience responds. Some people review FB at night; each audience is different.
Choose the best days to post
Thursday and Friday are, in general, the best days, even to send newsletters. So you can take advantage of them to publish your most important content or offers.
Post Manually
Unless you have many blogs and fan pages to manage, try to publish manually and not through software that automates the process. Facebook tends to give more weight to what is published manually.
Find out which posts performed best, what days of the week, where your fans come from, etc. Facebook puts at your disposal a set of statistics that you can access (and export for a more detailed analysis) very quickly: go to the “Edit the page” button that is located on the top right of your fan page, and then select “Statistics” and that’s it.
Update 1
With the appearance of Google +, Facebook put the batteries with innovations. Among them, we can mention the new Subscriptions button for personal profile pages.
A “Subscribe” button appears on your profile when you activate the option to have subscribers. People who click it will be able to see your public updates in their News Feed, whether they’re your FB friend or not.
All your friends will be shown as subscribers because you have always been subscribed to your friends, but now, with the “Subscribe” button, you can choose the updates you receive.
So it is essential that you activate it as soon as possible, so you offer that option: http://www.facebook.com/about/subscribe.
Update 2: New news feed
Yesterday September 21, Facebook reintroduced a change in the “news feed” or “latest news.” It combines the latest news (3) and headlines (1).
I took the sample images from the same Facebook blog because they are not yet enabled in mine.
All stories with a high edge rank will appear in Top Stories in the English version). Still, users will be able to customize their news feed by selecting which stories are important to them, so I imagine we’ll start to see requests for “if you like this story, please mark it as a top story” 🙂
If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, it tells you that you have pending headlines and alerts you with that little triangle above your photo.
Conclusion
I hope this little guide will help guide your fan page Read more
