Last week I wrote about “What Facebook’s New News Feed Means For Your Marketing Efforts.” I wrote that I believed the new News Feed, with its non-chronological, algorithmically-ranked, Top News and Recent Stories (as well as the Twitter-like real time Ticker) would make it more challenging than ever to get your stories (Facebook’s new term for posts) seen in your fans’ news feeds. I still believe that is true, but has it become impossible? Emphatically no!
Yesterday on AllFacebook.com, the administrator of a popular Facebook Page for a non-profit cause wrote a bitter complaint titled, “Why Is Facebook Punishing Highly Engaging Brands?” Based on a few day’s data, he claims that daily interactions (likes and comments) on their page stories have halved since the rollout of the new Facebook home page. He asserts that Pages that do not use Facebook advertising, sponsored stories, or the new Open Graph apps, are being dumped by Facebook, no longer being given a chance at being seen by their fans.
Like several commenters on that post, I immediately went to check both my own Facebook News Feed and the stats of Pages I administer. In my personal profile, I have 739 friends, 7 non-friend subscriptions, and have “liked” over 420 Pages. I am seeing plenty of Page stories in my News Feed; no more or less than before the switch, I’d estimate. I’m certainly not seeing all of their stories (I wasn’t before either; nor would I want to!), but they haven’t been switched off as the poster above claims.
I am also not seeing any significant drop off (so far) in the stats for the most active Facebook Page I administer. We’re getting just as many Likes, Comments, and Shares as we usually have in recent months.
So why such a different experience for the AllFacebook.com guest poster? I really can’t say, but I suspect he may just be looking at too brief and too recent a sample of data from his Facebook Insights. Insights is notoriously slow on posting data; it is nowhere near real time.
In the meantime, what can you do to make sure your content on your Facebook Page keeps showing up for your fans?
- Follow my recommendations in “What Facebook’s New News Feed Means For Your Marketing Efforts.” Step up fan engagement, and post excellent, relevant content more frequently.
- If you have a Page whose fans seem to enjoy the content, don’t be shy about asking them to “train” their News Feed to show them more of your stories. I posted the following on my most active Page and got a great response from our fans:
Important Notice for Our Facebook Friends
Do you want to be sure you are seeing all updates from CCEF in your Facebook News Feed? With the new Facebook design, Facebook decides what appears in your Top Stories and Recent Stories based on how much you engage with the content. Commenting on & Liking our posts helps. But the best way to make sure you see everything from us is to click the blue triangle in the corner of our posts whenever you see them. This tells Facebook you want us to be in your Top Stories. Thanks!
By the way, I’m in no way advising that you ignore using Facebook ads, sponsored stories, and Open Graph apps in your Facebook marketing efforts. Those aren’t right for everyone, but well-used they can all reap good rewards. I’m just saying that organic marketing on Facebook is not dead. It’s just more a case than before that the most-engaged with the best content will rise to the top, which is as it should be.
