Facebook Reach on Post Just Spiked!
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Yesterday I put a post with a photo on our company Facebook page Normally our reach on a post is 500-600 out of a list of 77,000 followers. However, since posting this one yesterday afternoon, our reach has hit almost 9,000!
The only thing different with this post vs. any others we've done is that I put a text link for the company name back to the same Facebook page that the post was put on. I didn't intend to do this, it's just that when I started typing in our company name, Facebook suggested making it a link, so I thought, why not? I'm thinking somehow that made it appear in more people's timelines than usual. We posted it the same time in the day as every other post, and this was the only thing unique about it.
Any thoughts?
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Ah, that's about what I suspected. Tagging back to our FB page was the ONLY thing we did differently in that particular post. I just ran another post with similar content and also tagging our page, but the reach on that one was about what we expected. It's nice when you occasionally find yourself on the right side of the algorithm.
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So as you probably noticed, Facebook's algo has been hitting brand's pretty hard when it comes to post reach recently. The only thing I'm seeing across the board that actually works is paying for your post to be promoted, and then usually the organic rate goes up.
Ignite did a big study where they found an exact equation for how much you pay and how it increases, not only ad views, but organic reach too. Despite what Facebook says.That said, there are "tricks" that some people have noticed that help you more reach. I'd equate these tricks to SEO tricks back in the day, like keyword stuffing, only they're perhaps less annoying.
These tricks will help you see a little increase, but eventually Facebook changes the algo to get rid of them or essentially fix a bug in their algo. One of these tricks is tagging your band in your post. My theory behind why this works is because Facebook finds a post with others tagged it more valuable (brands can only tag other pages). We tried this trick with Moz's account, and we saw only a negligible difference, much less than yours! -
I dug into the post metrics and they haven't shed much more light on why this one has so much more reach than any others. Its a photo post, as are many of our others, without the photo being that much more interesting. It's also a contest, which we've run many, many times before with less reach, so I'm still scratching my head. The only variable is that there was a link in the post BACK to the FB page it was posted from. Still don't know why that would have an impact, though.
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Edgerank doesn't exist anymore.
This is why I don't do Social Media any more. There is enough to contend with SEO hehe...
-Andy
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Edgerank doesn't exist anymore. Its much more complex now and without a catchy name. (I still catch myself calling it Edgerank when trying to explain Facebook feeds to people though) http://marketingland.com/edgerank-is-dead-facebooks-news-feed-algorithm-now-has-close-to-100k-weight-factors-55908
Check the post metrics in your Facebook insights for a deeper understanding of that post. Might help you glean more ideas as to what specifically was different about this post and maybe it can be replicated in future posts. Much of Facebook is trying to determine when to post those things that should be seen right away, when to post the interesting stuff that can sit all day, when to tag who & how, varying of images & links & shares, and determining what your community appreciates so you can deliver more of that to them.
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I think that what you are seeing here, is an aspects of Edge Rank. This is Facebook's own algorithm that determines how a post is promoted, by looking at various factors.
Have a read of: http://www.whatisedgerank.com/
If you understand how Edge Rank works and how it ties in with visitor interaction, you can do a lot more with your Facebook pages.
I probably don't spend enough time on SM than I should do (due to amount of work), but it is definitely something you should look in to more.
-Andy
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