There's more to it than that.
If you follow George Takei's page, he or his ghost writer has been posting that despite having millions of followers, they estimate that only 10% of their 4.6M subscribers are seeing any of their posts.
So, as you see, it's not that your favorite pages aren't posting it's that Facebook has this new (well, since early 2012) marketing algorithm that is actually filtering your news and page feed.
-
Yep, Facebook Knows What's Best For You!
The sad part is that it not only impacts pages you think you liked, but your friends updates as well. Well, those who you have not unsubscribed from or already filtered out that is. (Yes, you can remain friends, but turn off the noise of what they say, if it gets under your skin.)
-
Part of this filtration process that has stopped you from getting updates from everything is actually your (and my) own behavior.
Facebook PAGE ADMINS, Pay Attention:::
Edgerank looks at aspects like...
-If you've interacted with your friends and pages;
-If anything you've posted has been marked as spam;
-Any Unlikes you've received;
-If friends interact with your page/stream or not;
-Freshness: Have you logged in over the last week or so, or are you having your bots and apps do the work for you?
In English, that means the amount of engagement you have with pages or friends, and the strength of your relationship ties. (How many friends, or friends of friends have touched a page or post, etc..)
Because of this, many large name brands are adopting the strategy of telling their fans how to subscribe to their content so they don't miss out.
-
The Various Ways To Get Your Updates
(image courtesy of techwyse)
To make sure you do get updates from pages or people you want to see posts from, the options are over there, under the 'Like' button.
If you hover your mouse over the Facebook 'Like' button, you can see options like
"Get Notifications,"
"Show in News Feed," or
"Add to Interest Lists...,"
which in theory, will keep you connected to that page/person.
Tidbit: Some folks believe that 'liking' a page does not automatically select the "Show in News Feed" option. So make sure of this.
-
The INTERESTS categories are great.
Here, I myself broke out several content subjects and all I have to do is click on that label so see, who, under what, has posted recently. This makes it a filtered feed and it has a slightly cleaner format than the main feed does. (At least it does today, 10-10-13)
If I want to only see my Bigfoot pages that I follow, clicking on that interest that I've created/added will only show those pages I've put under that heading. And it's a much cleaner feed to review.
So the noise is cleared out and you can focus! (I get so ADD reviewing my news feed some days!)
-
Facebook "Top Stories" or "Most Recent?" Which one?
Supposedly that option at the upper right of your feed has an actual usefulness to it.
The 'Top Stories' option is supposed to be the option that lets FB decide FOR YOU, what it thinks is most important to you. (I would have never guessed that from some of the items that show up there.)
Supposedly (again), the 'Most Recent' option will list all your feeds. (Again, would never have guessed that, considering what does or doesn't show up there.)
Oh, and if you use the smartphone app for FB, you have to select the 'Most Recent' option EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU open the app. (If that's your favored option.)
For some reason, they don't care what you've picked as an option.
-
If You're Busy, This May Not Be For You
If you're one of those who has followed a thousand pages and have a thousand friends, then to be honest, I think the Edgerank algo is right up your alley, since it's impossible to keep up with it all if you are connected to that many sources.
Me personally, I think this Edgerank thing is a cost-savings tool and something of a marketing laser beam tool, where achieves lower bandwidth for FB, plain and simple, and helps funnel people to the paying clients of FB.
So it costs them less to stream content since much less content is being fed to the users, and gets targeted consumers to target brand pages.
-
Page Fans, Keep it in the House and Say Hi!
If you do see something from a page or friend you follow, say hi with a "like" or a note every now and then. It's like getting a message from an old friend when that happens.
It also helps your friend's or family members page. That's because when you like something and then your friends see something you've liked, they might take a look too. And you would be doing your friend or relative an awesome favor for their page. (ah hem!)
(To be honest, it's kind of cool to see that folks like my dog's activity!!!)
On another post, 4/35. Yet another, 30/176. (Liked/saw) 30 awesome likes led to 176 folks being exposed to and looking at the pic! (That is pretty exciting for a page admin to see actually.)
Remember, that pesky "Like" button can also double for the "Sympathies" button, the "OK, I Un-Like with you" but understand button, the "OMG, that's horrible" button, etc., etc.. (There's good reason FB doesn't have other buttons... web trolls and their negative-nellies can really screw up a good system.)
My worries are that if folks do want to see his content, and watch his feed passively, that they may lose out on posts sometime in the future. And I don't think they want to start missing out on everyone's favorite champion (in his division) frisbee chasing cattle dog!
So even if you're only slightly inspired by something you see in a page you like, or there's an image or quote that catches your attention on a page, consider showing it with a thump of the 'Like' button. That helps everyone stay connected and in a way, is saying hi back and forth.
It's like the water cooler at work. Yep, Facebook is the digital water cooler of the world, where we cross paths every now and then and maybe chit chat.
Plus, you'll never know what might come of that random 'Like' you do.
To be honest, because of one little 'Like' that I did a little over a year ago, I reconnected with dozens of old classmates from high school.
-
Page Owners - Play it Smart
Now if you have a page (or five) like I do, if there's one thing you need to think about, it's about your friends and fans and not be spammy about stuffing things in their faces.
It's good, or best quality content you can create that gets good traction. So keep it fresh and clean and don't badger your friends constantly. Sometimes, they simply don't want anything to do with your beloved hobby or hoped-for business venture. They just want to hang on FB and enjoy their stay, and not have to say no or ignore your page requests.
With me, I've taken a new approach to this page and website thing and inviting friends to like a page I have. I stalk!
First, I don't blanket invite folks to my pages. I take a look at each individual to see if they've liked similar content to one of my pages. If so, I send an invite. If not, then I don't.
Also, I write about things I find myself looking into and research. And I talk about them, as if I'm chatting with friends, family or peers. I can't be the end-all to everyone and everything. (That comes later when I'm hugely popular and have to hire writers.)
Site owners and editors already have a relatively new and huge uphill battle with Google and Google's push to squash the little guy and favor the mainstream labels (advertisers that pay the big G) on the web. So don't alienate your fam with crap and keep it honest!
-
Some Follow Forms are Annoying
OK, with all that said and done, the premise is that if you want to follow a page or person, there are several options to keep their content coming to your feed.
- You can 'Like' it. That's the basic first step to any and all interactive processes on Facebook.
- You can check 'Get Notifications.' This is great because a little pop up in your lower left corner will ping when anyone or thing you've checked this for puts up a new post.
Disclaimer: If you click 'get notifications' on too many pages, you'll be constantly getting annoying little windows popping up. And you'll have a little icon to right of the top-center of your feed start to click off a tally of unread updates.
Choose wisely who you want to select this option for, and it's a wonderful way to stay right on top of your favorite page or two. More than that, it gets stressful.
- Make sure things you 'Like' have the "Show in News Feed" option clicked. I looked around and sure enough, a few things I've liked in the past had that unchecked.
I wonder if this thing unchecks itself?
- Using that "Interests" list filter process is a god send. Each day you can just click on one interest and see everything that posted today from the pages you've added to it.
Then, if you have four or five or more interests, it's easy enough to scroll through each one.
It's my favorite way to look up whose said what about what, in recent hours or days.
-
In Closing
That's that. I know I've added a ton of info here, and it's only scratching the surface of what you can do with FB to keep your sanity while being one of the billion daily users on the marketing application of Facebook.
Yes... it's all geared towards getting you to look at their advertisers, and the advertisers that your friends looked at, and what not.
But it's a free tool that helps you stay connected to so many sources.
And yes, if all you want to do is stay in touch with family, that's easy enough too, with some privacy lock downs and not liking anything, Facebook can be a great stay-in-touch-with-fam kind of tool.
But really, it's like Pringles. You can't just eat one. Right? (That's a Pringles slogan, isn't it? Or was that Lay's ... oh crap... now I want some chips.)
-
Resources polled for info or examples:
{techwyse: facebook-page-posts-not-showing}
{hongkiat: facebook-wall-feeds} < RECOMMENDED visit... they have lots of good suggestions at this link.
{facebook: VadersWorld}
{yahoo: george-takei-facebook-ghostwriter}
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Comments
Post a Comment