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Facebook Strategy Tips for Bloggers

I find myself writing this post because I have lots of friends in the blogging world that ask for my opinion on my Facebook Strategy Tips.  Some ask, but I bet there are some that want to know but don’t ask because they are afraid for some reason.  I usually fall into the category of being afraid to ask for fear that I am asking for some super secret insider trade secret.

There are three things I do in my Facebook Strategy:

1. Stay active by posting throughout the day.
2. Post new and engaging material that fits my niche or resonates with my audience.
3. Share other content that is considered “viral” or popular.

Stay active by posting throughout the day:

First,  I want to say that I am not a big fan of Facebook in general.  I find it useful for business and good for personal but I don’t put all of my marketing efforts into it.  In fact, I have hired help that does this for me.  We use Coschedule as the platform for sharing our content across most of our social media channels.  It’s not free but we find it extremely useful and at $10 a month it’s worth it in my opinion.  I love to see my calendar all on one page and the analytics are important too.  Most importantly, I found it doesn’t affect my Facebook reach either.  I have noticed if I use certain share platforms my reach goes down.

We try to schedule about 5 to 7 Facebook status posts a day.  Sometimes it might be more depending on what is going on.  We typically don’t like to post more than 7 to 9 statuses because they don’t seem to perform as well.  This is what works with my audience.  I’m not sure if it’s my audience or a Facebook thing.  It almost seems as though less is better.  I would suggest you test your page and see what works for your audience.

 

Post new and engaging material that fits my niche or resonates with your audience:

We constantly look at our Facebook Insights (analytics) to make sure what we are posting is getting likes, shares or comments on our page.  If the reach numbers are extremely low, we try to limit that type of content.  No one can tell you what is good for your page like the insight numbers can.  I suggest looking at them everyday.  Always look at the previous day to get the final outcome.

I have a thought process on the material we post.  We want it to be engaging.  This may be a status is positive or negative or a blog promotion.  We post statuses that will promote engagement.  We may ask a question.  We may give an opinion, hoping others respond with their opinion.  We also try and post funny and stupid content too.  Most importantly, we try and get content that is happening now.  For example,  if I am watching a season finale and there was a crazy outcome, I may just post a status about the show.  Especially if it’s something that is trending on twitter.  I’m trying to say that we don’t just promote our blog content on Facebook.  We think of Facebook as a place to let loose at bit and be social with our audience.

Here is an example of our Facebook posts reach:

My most popular post for 1/29/2015 was our Easy Pot Pie Recipe with a reach of 81K.  The next thing we share was the Budweiser commercial which had a reach of 36k and our Crockpot Ribs recipe at 44K.  All those did well for us.

Look at your own numbers to determine what does well for your audience and post more of that type of content.

Note:  I have tried to boost a post on Facebook via a paid campaign but didn’t find it beneficial.

 

Share other content that is considered “viral” or popular:

In the photo above you can see how the Budweiser commercial did well for us.  It was not our content but it helped with our reach numbers.  This was shared directly from their facebook page.  This helps them but it also helps me in a big way.  The interaction counts on my page and helps my reach numbers to increase.

Tip:  When I share a video like this from another page I always try to add some of my content that may go well with the topic. For example, I added a big game recipe that I thought would be perfect.

 

Share other content that is considered “viral” or popular:

The above Budweiser commercial leads me to my next tip.  Sharing information that is viral is important to me.  I use this sharing part when there is a hot topic in social media or when I don’t have new content to share myself.  I use it as a filler in my social media strategy.

How do you know what is a hot topic that will create excitement on your Facebook page?  Usually you can tell by the amount of likes, shares and comments but I have another tip for you too.  I’m a big fan of sharing the best of the best so I use the Facebook insights page to help me find valuable content to share.

Here’s what you do.  Click the Facebook fan page insights tab.  Then scroll down until you get to the section labeled Pages to Watch.  I’m not sure if there is a limit as to the amount of pages you can watch or not but I add pages here that I find successful.  Click “Add Pages” to watch the growth of a page.  After you add a page you can click on it to see the top posts from that page.  I usually try and find the top posts from the pages I like when I want to share the best content.  As a general rule, I try to share content that is non competitive articles I already that will resonate with my audience.  I should mention that I don’t participate in sharing groups.  Sometimes people may think an article is doing really well but I find it may not do as well as I thought.  Low reach is not good for your page.  In fact,  I will sometimes delete a post in a few hours if I see it’s not doing as well as expected.  I can watch my friends pages and share as I see fit.  No need for a share group if you are watching the pages you want to share from.

This is a tip that saves me lots of time on social media.  I do tend to change up the pages I watch also if I stumble across another page that is doing well.

And yes,  I watch my own page too.

 

I hope this is helpful to my blogging buddies.  I have found my Facebook social reach has been anywhere from 2 million to 80 million at a time depending on what is posted.  These strategies have helped me work less and gain more followers.  It’s hard to believe that in February of 2014 I was at 39k followers and today I am at 183k followers.  I must be doing something right.  In fact,  I have a virtual assistant run my page with these guidelines that I have.  Overall, I get a pretty good reach with Facebook but I have learned from before not to ever count on it.  I get good reach today but that could change tomorrow.  I think it’s smart to know this and not put a ton of time into something that could go away in a heartbeat.

I’ve purposely disabled comments on this post only because this is my opinion and my strategy.  I’m only looking to help my blogging friends by writing this article.