3 Reasons Not to Obsess About Your Facebook Feed

Facebook is frustrating!

Or it can be, if you are the obsessive type, constantly reviewing your statistics and analyzing if your posts show up in your reader’s feed or not.

But here’s the thing I’m worried about – if you are obsessing about Facebook (or even worried a little bit) I fear that your marketing may just be a one-trick pony.

One. Trick. Pony. Sad, right? Surely you have other tools in your saddle bag to connect with your community!

I spent hours of my time on Facebook, but I’m there because my community is there. I’m investing in creating relationships, not investing in creating popularity rank. Maybe I should be, but the truth is, I’m betting on tried and true communication to win the day for my business and me personally. So far, it feels pretty darn good. I tempt you to try it my way!

1. Facebook Is Only One Communication Tool of Many

Facebook should be just one facet of your overall marketing and engagement plan. Particularly, if your audience happens to be women aged 35+, or even women 50+, the fastest growing population of Facebook users. You simply must use other marketing strategies combining “in real life” and traditional marketing combined with other online strategies. In the perfect marketing world, you are sharing your ideas and message and sales opportunities with a core nucleus of customers and potential customers in many different ways.

You cannot rely on Facebook. Put some effort into what you can rely on better.

There are dozens of ways to connect with your ideal audience. You should more than one thing, always. You need a “multi-marketing strategy”. It’s been this way since I was 19 at the advertising agency I worked at. It’s that way still.

Try creating one message and communicating it in many of these ways – one to one conversation, a personal note via email or mail (or Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn), a blog feed strategy to your list, and then move up the social marketer splatter (I mean ladder) like a Facebook post to your personal and business page and set of Twitter posts.

Let me know what changes when you use one message in several ways, rather than several messages to one Facebook audience.

2. You Shouldn’t Put Effort Into What You Can’t Control

The truth is, Facebook “edge rank” which is the algorithm that determines what posts show up as “most popular”, seems broken at times and confusing for most the rest of the time. And you can’t control this. You can’t manifest or manipulate Facebook into working for you any better than it already does. Not really.

But you can be a better communicator in general, which helps Facebook work better for you (see point 3), but you cannot change Facebook.

Facebook has appeared to go through yet another recent change which infers your posts are only popular if people are clicking on them or liking them. Which I think is the whole point. So I’m not worried about it.

3. You Should Put Effort Into Good Communication – That You CAN Control

So, I just completed an 8-video series called Blog to Business Revolution, and in it I teach about ENGAGEMENT and CONVERSATION. I talk about creating a community. The truth is, a big part of my community is on Facebook.

Here is how I use good communication strategies within Facebook, so I don’t need to obsess about how my feed works:

• Facebook GROUPS
  A Facebook group makes a more valuable point of contact with certain groups of people.They are very personal because people are in groups with a common set of interests and purpose. They get response. Always. They don’t get “ranked” on Facebook, but they do create conversation. They enhance who I am and what I’m known for. And they can do this for you too. Facebook GROUPS are critical to your business growth because they help anchor your personal brand because you are showing up as a person, not a post in a feed that may get lost. I bet you are in a group aren’t you? Go put it to the test.
• Focus on Creating Conversation Over Conversion
  There are certainly times I want to “convert” an idea I have into a program or event sale. Definitely. But more often than not… I’d say 90% of the time… I’m trying to create conversation. Again, conversation is cornerstone of your personal brand. When you drive the conversation, you drive your brand (or else someone else will do it for you). If you have can have a good Facebook conversation with 5 to 50 people, you have made an impact on them and your business in a good way. Conversion comes later, in many ways, with that audience if they are engaged enough to pay attention to you.

  Oh, by the way, I find this laughable, but Facebook is now making posts “popular” by how much “engagement” they create. So that means, the more it’s liked, commented on, shared – it has more engagement. We’ll see how this pans out. But just keep creating good conversation and it should all work out just fine!

• Good Communication Starts From a Plan
  There is no problem writing the odd personal status update about your life or your business – because that makes you interesting and standout. Only sharing business news makes you impersonal and like you don’t care about anyone else (because others are curious about who you really are – don’t be afraid to get a little personal on Facebook).
• Use The Tools That Do Work
  Facebook has “interest lists” (you can list your favourite people by category) and just rolling out is “Get Notifications”  on Facebook pages.

  From your personal page go hover of your Like button on your Facebook business page (or go hover over mine http://www.facebook.com/mpoweredmarketing) and you will see “Get Notifications” (if it’s not there yet, it’s coming) and “Add to Interest Lists…”. Then go post on your Facebook groups and feed that it’s there with instructions to your fans to click to keep you in THEIR feed.

So what are you going to do different? Stop worrying so much and go have fun! Practice the art of online conversation, remind your fans to follow, like and use that “get notifications” button on your business page – and then move onto the rest of your marketing mix so you actually grow your business, not just grow your Facebook stats.

What else do you do with Facebook that creates engagement, conversation and genuine influence or brand growth for your business? Share your tips in the comments please!