I see it all the time, page owners posting updates along the line of you can’t seeeee me any more, why you no liiiiike me, damn you Facebook for my non-interactive page. Look, I’m going to call it and say, yes there have been changes, but no, the sky is NOT falling. I’m going to acknowledge that I’ve been there. I put my whiny voice on with the best of them. I was frustrated, wondered why they would DO this to me and all that. But heck, it’s like anything online, nothing ever stays the same. Keep moving or get left behind. I think that the key now is to be even MORE interesting than you were before, MORE interactive and MORE present.
I’ve been developing this theory for a while. It’s like Facebook set out to make us TRY harder. At the moment my page has just under 1,300 likes, so small fry by a lot of scales. But the thing that makes my page a community of interactive and super cool people is that we have a talking about score that hovers round 400+. I’m not so crash hot at maths but the percentage is pretty high. It’s a pretty good report card for those playing at home.
So let me tell you about how.
You see, the creator of The Stay at Home Mum lives in my town. Right here, over the hill in fact. So country I know. Some of you would know the Stay at Home Mum, right? They just hit over 100,000 likes on their Facebook page. Them. Well it was a while ago that I suggested we have lunch or a coffee. Tell me about Facebook I said. Hook a Suger up. My page was sitting around 500 likes and hadn’t moved in a while. Talking about was looooow at best. She told me to do some things with my page to get interaction rolling and I’m going to share them with you. Maybe it’s something you can replicate for yourself. Maybe not. Maybe you just prefer to cry about the sky falling. You choose. HA.
- Be consistent – Set a rough schedule of times you want to post stuff and stick to it. have regular updates and continuing posting along similar lines every day. It doesn’t mean consistently asking the same things, just posting post links or a photo of yourself {guilty!}. It’s a numbers game, the more regular your pots, the more chances you have to be in front of people and more regular opportunities they have to interact with you.
- Be interesting – Ok this one is a tough one. But you have to be interesting I see it all the time page updates that say sorry for being absent or boring or whatever. Errr, stop reminding that I had planned to unlike your page and hadn’t gotten around to it. Make EACH update worth something to the reader. Often on my page I ask questions, because I’m a curious nerd. I love to post photos and funny things I find, I share links and photo links to my posts and other people’s links. Keep changing it up and if people WANT to interact with something that you’re doing, consider that THAT is what is interesting to them. Maybe do that again.
- Be interactive – On the Stay at Home Mum page at the time they liked {as an acknowledgement} every single comment and post. Sure by this stage it took a team to manage, but they made sure every single person who went to the trouble of interacting felt like they were being interacted WITH. That is, the point after all. Facebook is designed for that.
- Be ahead of the curve – Don’t copy what other pages are doing, you’ll always be following them. You need to be the first to find that cool thing to post, the first to share that breaking niche news. That’s what it takes to be ahead of the game. You can’t follow others. Not once did Jody given me content ideas. Any ideas she had were already being used. She trained me to think up ideas for myself within the Facebook framework.
- Be yourself – Jody shared a story with me about swearing on her page for the first time. It’s something she does a little of in her day to day life but had never done on the page. The first time she did so on the wall, the interaction was HUGE. It wasn’t about swearing or whatever, but it was about her being who she is and people connecting with that. SO don’t try so hard. Be yourself.
So here’s the thing, you can tell me you are doing all this and STILL only 30% of your likes are every seeing your content. Well, true. It absolutely is the way it goes sometimes. I find that when I post when more of my readers are actually online {not when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night so it ends up at the very bottom of their news feed come morning} then it does better in terms of reach. Or people who have seen the post. That’s my final tip, take a look. Are you REALLY doing those 5 things? Are you there when your readers are or are you missing them?
There you go. My tips for an interactive Facebook community. It all comes down to one thing though in the end, it won’t happen over night, but it WILL happen. HA. I’m a bundle of clichés and slogans at the moment aren’t I!? But seriously it will take a little bit to get your interaction up, because you’ve trained people not to interact with you and the algorithm knows it. Keep chipping away and sooner or later it will snowball.
Good luck Facebook’ers.
And heck, if you still hate it there that much, you can always delete your account. It’s the 2012 version of running away from home. HA. I saw that on an eCard on FACEBOOK. Of course. Because that’s where the action is people.
Hi! I’m Suger; Chief Blogger at Suger Coat It. Blogging since 1901; love a casual ootd, taking photos + writing about things that irk or inspire me. I love wine and cheese, long days in the sun at the beach and spending time with my family. I make stuff for the internet. Which means I take photos, create content, write copy and devise social media plans for personal brands, small businesses and bloggers. You know, living the sweet life.
Hi Mel. First time here courtesy of a tip off from Lisa at Renovating Italy. She thought I’d like this piece and I did. First impressions? Love the whole spirit of your site … so open, straight up and welcoming. Nice to meet you.
Nice to have you here Marg. Love Lisa, so any friend of hers is a friend of mine. Welcome. Glad you enjoyed the post. Your first impression is just what I aim for, so that’s awesome. 🙂
fabulous fabulous xxx
Thank you. 🙂
I actively look for the pages I like anyway – ie one of my favourite bloggers (other than you of course, haha) is in Perth and I am in QLD. Naturally, I miss some of her updates from time to time. But I like her page so much that I really do actually miss them like ‘Oh I wonder what TFP is up to’ so I physically go to her page,and her blog. Plus there is the whole ‘Pages Feed’ where I can click and see all the page updates that have been made.
While we’re ranting on Facebook I haaaaate pages who are like “ooh 50th liker gets a free whatever, will you be our 50th liker?”, um, no I won’t because I already like your page so rather than stressing about #50 why don’t you put some love into the other 49.
I think you would be an awesome liker to have! For sure. Going looking for news is a wonderful thing. The new pages feed is a great addition! Love mine. I started a blog list but never really updated it as I liked new pages, so errr, it totally didn’t work.
Haha, ah yes! I’ve been guilty of this too. I call them the like me like me giveaways. They are annoying as hell. And sometimes, I just can’t help myself.
Interesting. Gave me some tips in case I want to put my blog on Facebook (which I think will never happen).
Haha. I’m glad. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, always good to hear what is working for others 🙂
I’ve only just started my new blog but one day I hope to be a success story like you!!! (Flattery I know, but hearfelt!!!)
You’re welcome. Absolutely, I don’t think it should be a secret, we should be helping each other out. Flattery will indeed get you everywhere with me. HA. Thanks.
I think it all depends on effort vs reward. And the effort part of the facebook situation has been steadily on the increase. And they are dishonest about their promoted posts. Even if you say you only want it to be promoted to people who like your page a whole bunch of fake spam accounts seem to be involved. And that can be pretty frustrating.
So I think it does bring up the question – should I spend x amount of time on facebook where if I run an interesting page about 1/3 of the people who opt in to connect with me will see what I’m doing or do I jump ship to a different social network where the algorithm is a little bit more rewarding.
Pre-changes 1 facebook liker was worth about 13 twitter followers in the engagement and traffic stakes. I’m not sure that would still be the case. I’m hedging my bets. Facebook is developing a search engine so I’ll stick around to see how that pans out.
It is. Your audience has to be on Facebook. Otherwise you may as well be taking out newspaper ads. My audience apparently live on Facebook {and some days, Pinterest} so the return is worth it for me. I have a similar number of followers on Twitter to the numbers on my Facebook page {and am less interactive there these days} and see less than 5% of visits from Twitter while Facebook contributes upwards of 30%.
I’ve been getting ticked off by all the Facebook changes talk too. Like you said it is a challenge, and it’s trial and error. I kind of like working out what works and what doesn’t 😉
It’s absolutely a challenge. You have to think out of the box and market your stuff in a way that hasn’t been seen before and that’s like a red rag to a bull for me. Challenge accepted! 😉
Awesome, awesome post. Great advice. I know I’m not doing all that you’ve mentioned, but I’m working on changing it. It’s like having to plan to treat it like a micro blog as they say. Tell me though all these updates about where people say hey your not seeing my posts. Hover over here, click here and get all my updates blah, blah, blah……..is it necessary, I haven’t done it?
Thanks Trudie. Good luck with growing your page.
I did it once, just shared someone else’s post but didn’t see much change from it. From then whenever I was on a page I would check that box and it was always ticked anyway. So, I don’t actually see the point?
Great advice! Interaction is really the key 😉 If I am following someone who starts moaning more than once in a week about people not seeing their posts, I 9 times out of 10 delete them then and there. When you have 50 pages on your wall all posting the same blurb about how to stay up to date, it tends to do your head in! I love the way you interact on your page 🙂
Thank you. It is. You see results from almost any of the platforms that you put effort into AND that you audience is visiting and using. And you’re right, it pays to be different, for sure.