Easy Ways to Increase Your Facebook Page's EdgeRank
blog.getpostrocket.comI've been playing around with Facebook and other social media for a couple of years now. I have several fan pages, including one that I associate with my blog -- http://www.facebook.com/pages/What-To-Fix/184671281560277?re...
To me a FB fan page is unlike anything else out there. It's not an email list, though some people use it like that. It's not a group or circle, although it kinda works like that also. And it's not a one-way tunnel.
I liked this article, but I wonder if the real power of Facebook Fan pages isn't communication happening the other way -- getting feedback from your readers and fans. It also would have been nice if the author could have told us a bit about his real-world experiences before tossing out the list. How much did these tips help him, in real numbers? Advice is easy. Proven advice is much more difficult. This article walked the fine line between being useful and just restating generalities. It was difficult as a reader to tell.
Thanks for the comment. Good points all around. In regards to my background, I'm a co-founder at PostRocket. We recently announced our seed funding here: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/31/postrocket/. Prior to co-founding PostRocket, my team and I worked as social media consultants for big brands and celebrities. If you check out the TechCrunch article, you'll see one of our bigger past clients, Pitbull.
In regard to your point on feedback, I totally agree that is the most powerful thing that you can get from a Facebook page; however, you can't get feedback if your fans don't receive your messages. Multiple case studies have shown that 90-98% of fans never go back to a page after 'liking' it, which means that in order to get this feedback from them, you must conquer EdgeRank. If you have any other feedback I'd love to hear it.
I've noticed that images seem to be by far the most popular on Facebook. A recent one I uploaded for my fan page (http://www.facebook.com/ModernSherlock) got 12,000 'likes' and actually reached over 51% of my audience. That was a bit of a milestone for me. :-)
I've also always stuck to only posting once or twice a day and mostly never in the weekends.
Thanks for commenting and awesome page-- I just liked it and that image. I have to ask though, why have you chosen not to post on weekends?
I took the liberty of thinking that if I'm too busy to Facebook in the weekends, then everyone else is too. (Yeah... I know it doesn't work like that).
Posting 3-4 times per day seems quite high, unless the majority of your followers are really fans. Once postings get above 1/day on average, I'll typically unfollow a page if it was just something I was casually interested in, because it becomes too much clutter. Of course, there are a handful of things I'd love to hear from as often as possible, but they are really a minority.
Totally understandable. Just to be clear, I suggested 2-3 times per day with at least 4 hours between each post-- or at least 2-3 times per WEEK for those who aren't able to devote too much time to their page. The thing is, even if pages post 2-3 times per day, most fans will probably only see 1 of those updates due to EdgeRank and whether or not that user is online. I've found that 2-3 times per day is optimal to maximize reach and minimize negative feedback (i.e. unlikes). Hope this helps.
It absolutely depends on your audience. I've seen a football news site that posts updates and commentary on their page between 60 and 100 times a day yet their engagement, clickthrough and like stats are really good.
That could be true, but the problem with that is that they are cannibalizing their previous posts, not allowing them to really reach their true reach or engagement.