Facebook Updates
For a while business owners and marketers have been getting their heads around Facebook`s Edgerank, an algorithm which basically decides what appears on your Timeline. Edgerank took into account such factors as number of Shares, Likes, Comments and decided what was important and what appeared in your News feed.
Well now you can say “Goodbye” to Edgerank!
Story Bumping and Last Actor
Facebook has now got a new toy for you to play with in their latest update.
It has recently added 2 new factors to its algorithm called Story Bumping and Last Actor in an attempt to enhance your experience of using Facebook. Basically now instead of the most engaged posts appearing on your Timeline in time and date order it will now use Story Bumping and Last Actor as such:
- Story Bumping: Stories that appear below the fold (the point at which you start to scroll down on your screen) on `News Feeds` are now able to be `bumped` up your News Feed the next time you log-in
- Last Actor: Facebook now takes into account your last 50 engagements, adding more weight to individuals and business pages that a user has engaged with.
What Facebook are attempting to do is display relevant content it feels you are interested in on your Timeline.
What does this mean for business owners?
The new system is aimed at engagement, the more engagement you have the more Facebook deems it relevant to each particular user, the more chance you have of your posts displaying in their News Feed. Put simply when a user `Likes` something they are telling Facebook this is what I want to see and read more of. Of course on the other hand if they hide something from their Timeline it tells Facebook that this is what they don`t want to read and see less of.
So as a business owner how do you take advantage of this?
- Be proactive in searching for consumers likes and try to keep your brand in their minds
- Watch out for updates or statuses and respond quickly to feedback or comments (good or bad)
- It has always been about posting interesting & helpful content, even more so now! So drop the boring “sell, sell, sell” and adopt the “tell, tell, tell” attitude
The Signals to look out for
- How often you have interacted with that friend, fan or page
- The number of `Likes`, `Shares` and `Comments` a post has received from the Facebook community
- How much they have interacted with similar posts in the past
- Posts that have been hidden or reported to Facebook in the past, these are generally posts that are sales pitches, spammy posts, abusive, etc. None of which your posts from your business page should contain!
So to summarise…
If your posts do not initially appear above the fold and you think it may have been missed, don`t press the panic button just yet as Facebook now allows older to content to reappear at the top of that users News Feed later on if it feels it is relevant to that user. A great little trick I use is to find out what interests the fans of my business page like through Facebook`s new Graph Search but this is another completely different subject for another Blog at another time!
I will leave you with this very useful link though as Facebook are publishing a number of useful posts on their Facebook business Blog, so may be worth checking it our for more info.
Until next time, have a great weekend
Martin
If you require any help with your Social Media please get in touch as I offer a 1-2-1 Consultancy service where you can book just 1 hour or a number of hours where I can sit with you and go through any issues you have with Social Media.
This can be setting-up a profile, optimising it or just using a particular Social Media platform.
My fees are:
- £35.00 per hour if the consultation is done by phone or Skype
- £45.00 per hour if the consultation is at my office or at your premises within a 25 mile radius of Norwich.
Book your 1-2-1 today & get your Social Media working for your business!
