Facebook pages – work less, pay more
You absolutely MUST HAVE a Facebook page. If you have a website, a blog or any business for that matter, you simply cannot do without social marketing and, in particular, a Facebook page.
In fact, back in April 2013 Facebook published a post titled “The Importance of being ‘Liked’ On Facebook, stating –
When someone clicks your page and likes it, that also flows out to their feed to all their friends. So 1,000 people like your page, and if each of them has a 100 friends then multiply that and you get 100,000 people that could see your page.
Uh, uhm, not likely – (unless you fork out)
Well, that was way back then. Fast forward 10 months and Chris Turitzin, Facebook’s Product Manager for News Feed Ranking wrote –
… the latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends…
Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types.
And then it goes on to how you should (rather) link your blog post or web page.
One in a million chance?
If you run a Facebook page, lately you might have noticed that your witty quotes, clever advice columns or those scientific stats that you spend hours crafting have not been seen by all your “Like” friends. In fact, your Facebook page post might have reached far less than a quarter of those Likers.
The reason given by Turitzin aside, the move is an obvious strategic financial move. You want more people to see your post? Use the Facebook self service advertising feature.
The “Self service ad feature” actually does work well for reach (ad results is a different topic altogether). It really does display your post to – depending on your ad spend – thousands and even millions more Facebook users. And that, of course, makes the chance greater for your post being featured in the Facebook Newsfeed or the new Facebook Trending. It’s simply a number thing.
Both Google and Facebook have page views numbering into the billions and both Google’s search landing page and the Facebook Trending block feature only a mere handful of links. But getting your link on those prime properties need not be a “one-in-a-million-chance.” Beyond having relative content, an effective user interface and a speedy page, you need Adsense and Facebook ads (web and mobile formats) and, of course, some Guerrilla Marketing.
What do do?
As said, fork out. That’s the second move.
Firstly, concentrate on the quality of your content because, just as for your google results, people will link or “like” it only if they, well, like it. In fact, if it is to their liking, they will like it right there on your blog (providing you have a “Like” button – supplied by Facebook, AddThis and ShareThis).
Are Facebook “Likes” important
Yes, Facebook Likes are important because it is an indicator of the value of your page content. The same applies to the number of Twitter followers, Google PLUS likes, Reddit mentions, Stumble Upon recommendations, Pinterest posts, etc. that your content may receive. The more, the merrier.
But why should you pay?
Blogging guru Jeff Bulla gives an example of the difference between a recent Lady Gaga vs Beyonce marketing strategy.
Lady Gaga hyped her latest album by spending millions on bus advertising, billboards, 2 pop up stores and performed countless interviews. The result. She sold 305,000 copies in 2 weeks.
Beyonce decided to give the bus a miss…. launched (her album) directly to iTunes and social media…. The results: It sold 828,773 copies in 3 days.
Will more Facebook likes get you better google search results?
In November 2013, Eric Enge wrote on SearchEngineLand –
To summarize, it appears that Google previously had major technical limitations with regard to the use of social signals as a ranking factor. With Hummingbird, Google now has the infrastructure to better process social signals (among other things).
In January 2014, Jennifer Slegg pointed out on SearchEngineWatch that Google’s Matt Cutts, “warned about people making the jump to conclusions about lots of Facebook likes automatically meaning that the page will rank well. In reality, Cutts says that if a page has lots of likes, it probably is pretty awesome, and that is the reason why it ranks.”
Write lots and, if possible, spend lots
Some business models are built on solely on social media marketing. But some are targeted at a very small, highly specialized target market not generally found in the social media circle while some blogs, like this one, merely are for personal fun and thus not specifically aimed at generating hype or income. And to reach prosumers, your website or blog will do a better job than a Facebook page or Google+ page.
But if it’s a vast number of people you need to reach with your message, social media is one of the most effective marketing methods available today. After all, in the USA, for instance, Facebook is read daily more than Bible!
So, there you have it. To compete with the other 100 trillion pages on the web, the 200 million blogs and the 50 million other Facebook pages, write lots and, if possible, spend lots. And then track the performance on Social Bakers.
Best of luck!