Getting Your Business Facebook Page Seen in Someone’s News Feed

As Facebook Engagement in the News Feed started to see dramatic increases and users began interacting less and less on each other’s Walls, the impact all these changes had on Facebook pages for businesses was becoming absolutely agonizing. 

One infographic went so far as to claim that Fans were 40 to 150 times more likely to interact with a brand (“peruse marketing messages” was the exact phrase) via the News Feed than they were on that same brand’s page. What? This meant if a Fan (a Liker if you will), didn’t happen to see your post in their News Feed, your post (to all intents and purposes) didn’t exist and likely never did--or would.  After all, how far down do you scroll in your News Feed?  Sure there are times when you go ALL THE WAY BACK.  But for the most part, you don’t do you?

Now, factor Facebook’s algorithm into how often your business’ Facebook posts were appearing in a user’s News feed in the first place: 17% in January (EdgeRank Checker January 18, 2012).  In fact, All Facebook’s Brian Carter teamed up with EdgeRank Checker writing,

In June 2011, on average, page posts received .99 impressions per fan. That number decreased to 0.41 for December 2011. That’s a 58 percent decrease in impressions.

Marry this with Facebook’s own data that shows 97% of Facebook users sort their News Feed by Facebook’s auto default of “Top News” rather than “Most Recent” and many administrators for business Facebook pages had no idea what had happened to their once-promising social media endeavors.

Meld those latest round of changes in with the hype (and the typical copious amounts of misinformation online during this time) and business owners were bound to be “bewildered, befuddled and confused.”  (Nathan Lane, “The Birdcage”) But wait.  There was more!

In May of this same year (yeah it’s still 2012...) Facebook rolled out its somewhat infamous “Promote” button.  Pages with more than 400 Likes were able to pay to promote various types of status updates, supposedly making these posts more likely to be seen by Fans in their respective News Feeds.  This went over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.  (Interestingly enough, the channel first launched this as something for individual Users rather than brands-- but that would be a whole ‘nother blog post.)

We use the word “supposedly” above, not because we Geeks doubt Facebook’s promotional verbiage about how the “Promote” campaigns work, we don’t (very much).  We have little reason to suspect Facebook of being anything other than within the margin of error that’s considered acceptable in social media advertising e.g., WhateverFacebookSays%.  We use the word “supposedly” above because few small to medium sized business owners and social media managers believed Facebook. 

Blogs and forums were filled with unhappy company representatives that either felt “held-hostage by Facebook”, “mislead” (by the promised results) or “cheated” (in a myriad of ways).  Whew.  It was ugly.

So, were all your Fans and all the people that “Liked” your page really on vacation and if not, why was your Facebook Reach down?  (Really, you shouldn’t still be asking this question by now but we kept writing because we were pretty sure you would be…)

Yes.  If your Facebook Analytics were (and are) clearly showing you that your Reach is down then YES, your Reach is down.  But was it really down or were you just now (thanks to Facebook) actually aware of just how few people actually saw your posts?  Now, if it’s really down, chances are it wont be going back up any time soon if you “stay-the-course”.  (And do remember that Reach is unique people seeing your post, not total number of people.)

If it’s down, it’s down because (as you now know and understand), Facebook has made a lot of big changes in the last year.  It’s down because users have been given easy-to-use tools for the first time ever that allow them to view only what they want and in the order they want.  It’s down because EdgeRank has obviously changed.  We think when the algorithm deems a user’s interaction with a brand to be (we’re guessing here because Affinity is the one closely-guarded Facebook secret)—“average” or worse, it’s not going to show you in that individual’s News Feed with great frequency...if ever.  And here’s why:

Because now that users can add a brand to an “Interest” list or a “Favorites” list, Facebook may never show your Status Update unless a user adds your company to one of these.  Case in point: One of our Geeks “Likes” Oreos and has “Show in News Feed” selected.  Not once has Oreos ever appeared in their News Feed.  EVER.  Turns-out, our Geek has never Liked, Commented or Shared anything from Oreo.  (On the other hand, how can he when he has never seen a Status Update from them?)  Sayonara Oreos?

All this had led to a huge amount of misinformation from well-intentioned business users in Facebook.  Seen anything like this next graphic lately? If you have, ignore it.  It's wrong.

To read the absolute best article we’ve ever read that specifically addresses what has happened to Reach, see: “Uh Oh.  Facebook Pages Only Reach 17% of Fans”

Bottom Line?  There are really only two things you can do to make sure your content is being seen in someone’s News Feed (and conversely, that you’re seeing the content you WANT to see.)  One is mentioned above: Adding pages you like to your Interest Lists and getting your Fans to add your business page to theirs.  Here’s the other:

Fans Engaging with your page. It doesn’t matter if they like, comment, share, click links, etc.  But get them to do something or you’re sunk.

If it’s any consolation remember, Facebook Reach is branding.  It’s not Engagement. 

But that’s a blog post we already wrote..

Geeks would like to add that we think Matt Pierson of Porter Novelli best summed it up when it comes to sharing from a business perspective,

It would seem that Facebook’s changes are curbing sharing.  Our hypothesis is that it’s much more likely that this behavior is not going away so much as it is transforming, from status updates to “frictionless sharing".  Even as the new sharing methods enabled by open graph applications provide richer anthropological data, they are much more difficult, if not impossible, to collect for research. 

Side Note: Remember to be careful what you “Like” bc Facebook can (and does) push these to your News feed.  It seems to be especially vigilant about doing so if you’ve Liked anything political in nature.