The purpose of a Facebook page is to reach fans. Otherwise neither the page owner nor the fans would benefit from the whole Facebook-Social-Media-Shebang. That’s why it’s really unfortunate, that over the last few months this reach has been declining steadily.
Of course one could speculate if that has something to do with Facebooks’s love of ad-dollars or if this was just inevitable with the incredible amount of content that gets published every day. Bottom line, it’s here to stay and page owners have to deal with the fact, that they’re only able to reach a small percentage of their fans.
Luckily ther are a couple of nifty little tricks which utilize two of Facebook’s more recent features: Last Actor and Story Bumping.
In short:
Last Actor: A user is more likely to see content from a Page which he/she has recently interacted with.
Story Bumping: Older posts, which are not visible anymore in your “most recent” News Feed, can resurface if users are still (or again) interacting with it.
Here’s what you can do with it:
1. Link to/Embed Facebook posts
When was the last time you linked to a Facebook post? Exactly, you usually don’t do that very often. But thanks Last Actor and Story Bumping that might be something you want to try. Do you have a post which generated a lot of comments and was kind of a conversation starter? Revive it: Link to it on Twitter, on Google+, encourage your followers to participate, mention it in blogpost – or even better: embed it directly. That way your readers can interact with it without leaving your blog.
“Which of my posts generated a lot of buzz” you ask? Just click here and find out.
2. Comment a lot
Story Bumping doesn’t just work with fans’ comments, it works with yours, too. So scroll through your page’s timeline and look for unfinished comment-business. Get back into the conversation, restart it and the post will probably get bumped.
Generally speaking: Kepp conversations flowing. Ask distinct questions which are easy to answer and mention the people you are talking to by name (use @COMMENTERS_NAME). Keep in mind that every comment can get that post bumped.
3. Inherit reach
So with Last Actor posts kind of bequeath their popularity for a certain time. If you have a post with a lot of interactions, the next one will probably end up in a lot of News Feeds. That’s something you can use.
Let’s say you have some kind of “important” post. Why not precede it with something that’s whole purpose is to engage as many users as possible? This will “clear the way” for the important stuff and increase the chance of a higher organical reach.
Important: That doesn’t have to be nonsense-catcontent-fluff. A provocative theory, an informative infographic or some good old entertainment can be drawn from almost any branch or business.
If you want to know what kind of topics are yielding a lot of interactions in your industry, we at Fanpage Karma are more than happy to explain it to you.
4. Frequency and Patience
Sounds simple, but is super important. Back in the days, a page could get by with one post a day just fine. That’s not possible anymore, with a gazillion posts published each minute. The hard truth is: Those who post more get seen mor – and reach different kind of fans (e.g. Early birds vs. Nightowls). Silver lining: With more and more content floating around the interwebz, it’s easier to find something nice you can just share with your fans without spending too much time on creating something.
And then be patient. Maybe your posts have to slowly climb out of their Edgerank-hole before they get to “normal reach” level again. Don’t give up too fast, if you don’t see any major improvement the first few days.
5. Spending a little money
Last Actor and Story Bumping are also working with “paid” interactions from Facebook Ads or post-boosts. Promote an older post and yield some new comments and it might get bumped. And if some users become a fan after that, they’re more open for your next posts.
Wrap up
The time of easy and free Facebook-Marketing is finally over. And a couple of well spend $$$ makes some things a lot easer. But with a little creativity and some basic knowledge about Facebooks mechanisms, you can get results even if you don’t spend a single dime.
Do you have any secret tips? Share them in the comment section below.
Image: Flickr – stuartpilbrow – CC-BY-SA
