The Story Behind Your Facebook Newsfeed

Building up an audience on any social media platform requires a lot of hard work, staying informative, having a unique take on something and of course freebies. People love freebies and cat videos, but mostly freebies, giveaways are a staple for social media brand pages wanting to grow their fan base. But lets face it there are limits to how quirky as you can be, how many freebies as you can muster and how well prepared your posts are. Pretty soon you're going to have to face the facts, nobody likes you. The likes aren't what they used to be, the reactions, the comments the shares and you're facebook page is not a happy home. I'm here to tell you it's not your fault, well it's only partially your fault.

Move to the algorithm

So you wondering why your posts aren't as popular as teens dabbing in a classroom, blame it on the boogie of the edge algorithm. 2013 saw it receive a new name, EdgeRank algorithm, what is this you may ask. I shall explain it to you using a poem, ok not really. Take into account there like a billion (so not exaggerating this time) people using facebook posting billions of stuff to a very limited retail space called your newsfeed, Facebook was faced with a dilemma and just like Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, somethings gotta give. Facebook's main priority is to make sure you receive the most interesting content to keep you scrolling down your newsfeed for longer and while they have succeeded in improving average time on newsfeed over the last 10 years there's still a selection process to filter out the millions of shares and reshares to make room for fresh and trending topics. The longer they keep you online, the more ads they can serve and the more moola Zuckyboy makes. [caption

Make sure your Facebook posts always get a thumbs up

Understanding Facebooks Organic Post Reach

Now that you've read through all that history lets get down to why you opened this article in the first place, improving your posts. To make sure your posts creep through the sifting process as often as possible take into consideration the following metrics.

Who Posted It

It's an old tale, get more see more. The more you keep engaging with users by posting, following up on their comments, interacting on other posts and across Facebook, the more likely people will engage with your page and your posts in future.

Remain consistent, the more they engage with you, the more likely they will see your posts regularly. So start knocking on those online doors

How Other People Engaged With The Post

The sheep mentality, you're always likely to solicit a reaction, a comment or a share if users see tons of engagement indicators on your posts. You gotta get mo, mo engagement, mo money, mo problems!

Look at your most popular posts or create solid generic posts that you plan to reuse. Make sure the post can remain fresh and have a sense of longevity and then boost the reach with a couple of dollars every so often.

What Type Of Post Is it

The more that users typically engage with a certain kind of post (status, link, photo, video, event, job change, content from another app), the more Facebook will show you posts of that type.

The trick here would be to find out which types of posts work best for your audience and rank them in order of importance. Then divide the amount of times you post per month by the number of post types and there you have % mix of how many types of each posts you need to post to get maximum reach

When It Was Posted

Facebook likes it fresh, if you're first on the scene you will be the first to be seen.

Stay informed of trends in your industry there are plenty of news alerts, trend spotting and hashtag tools you can use to source hot topics and be the first to ride the wave.

How Many Others Have Posted the Same Thing

Create, share, reshare. The more the same thing is posted the more facebook sees it as something of importance, clearly, there has to be a vested interest in pomegranate butter in 2016 so let us give the people what they want.

Protip! Share my content, stand a chance to win a freebie

There are other factors involved like post times and users who manage their newsfeeds manually but that's a story for another evening. So rest easy, try implementing some of these tips and (Bad pun warning) funnel-y enough, more people will begin to see your content.

Contact Us

If you want to know more about optimising your Facebook posts don’t be shy we’re happy to assist. Simply contact us here

Tags: facebook, Social Media