People have been looking for the next big thing for decades, and many believe they’ve finally found it! “Social Media“. From MySpace to blogging, finding a way to make a living off being popular is the new frontier.
Of course, not everyone views social media as a profession: many of us mistake traffic on our blogs and Twitter streams for actual popularity and social interaction. And companies and businesses have discovered that social media networks can offer them an almost endless market for advertising.
But the visit count on your blog, the number of Twitter followers or your Facebook fan “likes” doesn’t necessarily mean you have a captive and active audience. Various factors—most of them completely out of your control—can affect who sees your content, whether they follow you or not.
Facebook Content is Viewed by Less than 10% of Fans
While Facebook’s “Pages” allows individuals and businesses to amass a fan base, that doesn’t mean that people see it. A recent article on All Facebook explains how fan pages’ performances are exponentially less effective than their owners believe they are.
This secret is what most people don’t know!
The breakdown of the article demonstrates that content on fan pages is viewed by only 3 to 7.5% of people compared to the total number of fans subscribed to the page.
What that means for small businesses and companies is that a platform they might use for the majority of their advertising is woefully underperforming.
So, how do you fix it? Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank that determines what users see in their feeds. With a little online training, you’ll be able to understand EdgeRank more, but there’s no surefire way to “game the system” (not that you’d want to do that anyway).
Still, there are things you can do to make your page more accessible to fans.
1. Fresh content is one of the elements EdgeRank uses to rank fan pages, so keep your content current and engaging.
2. Polls and questions are another great way to keep your fans interacting with your page.
Tweeting Tactics and Strategies
Twitter’s 140-character constraints force users to be both succinct and creative: it has given voices to millions of people for whom a website or blog is either too time-consuming or too intimidating. Businesses have used it successfully to reach out to consumers and to perform customer service functions.
For individuals and small businesses, a good tweeter is well-rounded and able to tweet about current events and Twitter trends as well as their product. That doesn’t mean you follow trending topics, but it does mean that mixing your company message with current events is a good idea. And more retweets expands your audience, so make sure your tweets are RT-worthy.
Social media is a relatively new medium, and it’s still changing and evolving. That means users of social media must also learn to adapt to the ever-changing landscape. Fresh and meaningful content, interacting with your fans and asking for feedback are the best ways to make your social media experience productive.
More Reading
- Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
- How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
- Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
- Does Twitter or Facebook Drive more Traffic to Your Blog
Guest Author: Lindsey Harper Mac
Image by Ksayer1