Did you know that Facebook penalizes pages for certain practices? Among them, posting to Facebook with a 3rd party app, such as Hootsuite, Edgar or Sprout Social. Contrarily, Facebook rewards Facebook pages that post “natively” – in other words, when you post content directly to your page via Facebook.
Posting with an autoposter, or scheduling software including the three mentioned above can result in lower Facebook page reach. That means fewer people see what you post to Facebook.
Why should you care?
Because it takes time to post to Facebook. You have to find content that’s worth posting and write your own comment about each photo or video that you share. Shouldn’t you make the time you spend on marketing your business social media worthwhile?
The research is inconclusive
In 2011, Facebook announced it tweaked its algorithm so that posts via an autoposter wouldn’t be penalized to the same degree. Jon Loomer wrote about a study he did where an autoposter actually increased the reach of his posts on one page. Disclaimer: Jon Loomer co-founded a company that created a 3rd party publishing app. Today, based on our own experience, posting via an autoposter or scheduling app does affect business’ Facebook page reach.
The biggest no-no: Autoposting from Instagram or Twitter to Facebook
We can’t say this enough: Don’t do it! It’s not about reach, but it is about engagement and professionalism. People who have done you the courtesy of liking your Facebook page don’t need to see any garbled, URL-laded posts in their news feeds. They want to see your witty or informative comment about a post you’ve shared to Facebook. No links, no hashtags, no @ handles. Just good, clean posts.
Looking to get better Facebook page reach?
Social Media Examiner is the authority on social media marketing and they have some great tips on how to maximize the reach of your posts to Facebook in this blog post.
To summarize:
- Post at least three times a day.
- Post interesting, engaging content that’s curated from your blog or from around the Internet.
- You may need to pay for posts (especially at first) to get them seen by more people. That’s called Facebook advertising.
And our own tips:
- Don’t just post content and leave it to die. Check back for comments and questions, and reply to all of them. After all, social is about conversations.
- Post content that is trending, but still relevant to your audience.
- Know your audience and post content that they’ll like to see, comment on and share!
Happy posting!
Of course if your social media marketing is becoming a hassle more than a pleasure, let us know so we can get you back to what you love doing – running your business – and we’ll take care of all your online marketing needs.
