Many bloggers and podcasters have Facebook fan pages for their respective properties. I have a fan page for Tim Ponders, as well as for my other site Podcasting Tutor.
Recently, I’ve been hearing some numbers about the frequency of how often fan page status updates appear in the news feed.
Social media speaker and trainer Mari Smith recently offered this on her facebook profile:
“The [Facebook] News Feed is *clearly* favoring posts and activity from friends and subscriptions (vs. fan pages) — it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get fan page content seen in the News Feed. So, do businesses then need to turn to ads/sponsored stories?
Her original status update can be found here.
Here is what I can potentially take away from Mari’s observations:
- Personal page status updates appear more often in the facebook news feed more often than updates from fan pages
- Your facebook edgerank (exposure on facebook) is elevated more by personal pages than by fan pages
- The posts from Facebook “Subscriptions” are favored over fan pages.
I’m interested in what your thoughts are and what your experiences have been. Have you seen more engagement on your personal pages in regards to topics that you blog or podcast about in comparison to your fan page?
Please leave me a comment below!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Use Buffer to share the same stuff on your Facebook Page that you manually post on Google+. That’s what I would do if I wanted to cut back. Personally, I curate so much content on a daily basis, that I really don’t mind too much if people don’t see it on my Facebook Page. They already liked the page so most likely they are following me elsewhere anyway.
I would not let my page go dormant, because as sure as the sun sets in the east (or is it the west) by next month or so, Facebook will change everything around again anyway. It’s what they do best.
@Ileane Thanks for the comment! Facebook certainly does like to change the way we accomplish our goals don’t they? Seems like they change things on an hourly basis sometimes.
I’m a fan of Facebook fanpages – no pun intended. I use Twitter, a newsletter, blog, website and Facebook in tandem and I think they all offer slightly varying benefits. For me a Facebook fanpage is an integral part of my marketing.
I’m a fan of Facebook fanpages – no pun intended. I use Twitter, a newsletter, blog, website and Facebook in tandem and I think they all offer slightly varying benefits. For me a Facebook fanpage is an integral part of my marketing.
@Sonya76 Sonya – Thanks so much for weighing in on the topic. I’m trying to leverage my fan pages and am interested in seeing how the metrics pan out. I need to direct more time and effort on the fan page for my blog. Simply posting content there isn’t achieving the engagement I’d like to see.
I have the blog engage fan page going and I think it’s 100% worth it for me. If you look at it you will see I’m sharing some of the top article on blog engage in the group. In fact I encourage my member to have specific buttons on their blog for engagement and Facebook share button is one of them.
@blogengage Thanks for taking the time to comment! Pages certainly hold value for many folks, yet some complain of seeing no engagement. I’m learning that there are plenty of reasons for low engagement, as well as many ways to improve it. Having learned more about the way Facebook EdgeRank works, I can see how a page fits into the sope of a brand.
@timarthur Your very welcome Tim, what I’m hoping is the members start seeing I’m sharing quality content there and perhaps in return they use the group more. Your right as this is a branding move to increase Facebook interaction.
My FB fans are pretty engaged with the page (my current rate is 5%). So for me, yes – this is definitely worthwhile. But I go out of my way to have conversations there and people come back and post their own questions for me. I’ve also got a separate page for my mascot and the interplay between them (the mascot can post on my biz page and vice versa) plus my own voice (not my biz voice) means that I get more exposure to all those newsfeeds.
@tsilvestre Very good point! Sometimes you need to go out of your way to nurture conversations and engagement. Thanks for stopping by and for your comment!
Facebook seems to be in transition to something else. Not sure why a successful model would need to be remodeled. If Facebook were a car company, they seem to be in the process of reversing the brake and the accelerator and seeing how customers like it. I have a fan page and truly love my Facebook friends. But it’s as though we are passing notes on a noisy bus by handing them to a guy in a suit, who sometimes reads them, sometimes passes them overhand, and keeps changing his approach. Does he plan to get something from us?
@AstroGremlin I really like your analogy! Facebook certainly seems to constantly change things. I’m sure many users have been put off by having to look at things in a manner they are not accustomed too each time they log on.
Have you seen any change in engagement on your fan page? Positive, negative, or about the same?