When you look at your business Facebook page statistics, do you wonder how Facebook decided how many people got to see your individual posts? Perhaps your page has 1511 likers, but only “320 people saw this post.” And why do some posts have thousands of views? Here is some of the latest news about how posts get exposure on Facebook.*
Each Facebook user has hundreds of connections: to friends; to family members; to businesses. Most of them are sharing content on a regular basis. According to Facebook, if they showed all potential stories from friends, pages and people they follow, there would be an overwhelming average of 1,500 stories. This is more than most people would have time to see.
Therefore, Facebook uses its News Feed Algorithm (formerly called “EdgeRank”) to decide who sees what. As you know, just posting something on your page does not mean your likers will see it. Facebook’s heart is in the right place: they are trying to make the user’s experience more enjoyable. However, it puts the page administrators and content providers in a fix. It’s not easy to consistently create content that gets attention on Facebook without paying to “boost” it.
One of the major factors Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm uses is the engagement rate. Facebook adds up how many people engaged with the post: clicking, liking, sharing and/or commenting. (This is probably weighted.) This number is divided by the number of people who saw the post. You can see the engagement rate in the Page Insights. The higher the engagement rate, the better quality your content was, and the more likely that Facebook will show it to fans.
Take a look at which type of your posts has the highest engagement rates. Text-only posts tend to have the lowest engagement; photos and videos usually work well. Monitor engagement rates over time so you can produce the best kind of content.
Another factor is how often you post. If a fan interacted with your page recently, it’s more likely they will be shown your content. The magic number here is 50: you want to be one of the last 50 posts that any particular liker interacted with. To stay top-of-mind, you need to post at least 3 to 4 times per week. Facebook likes it when your page gets engagement regularly. The Facebook Scheduler can really help – just create a post and click the clock to set it for the future. This works for shared links and text-only posts, but not photos and videos.
One more tip: Keep it relevant and authentic. Whenever someone hides your post, reports your post as spam, or unlikes the page, it’s a big “thumbs down.” Negative feedback can be viewed in the Page Insights section by clicking on an individual post.
Do your best to get as much organic engagement as possible. To succeed, you will probably need to supplement organic (non-paid) posts with boosted (paid) posts. Facebook may even suggest which posts are getting the most engagement and therefore should be boosted. Set a monthly budget and stick to it. Then pore over your Page Insights and adjust your strategy to get the best results on Facebook.
*Source: Facebook (Nov 2013)
