Some rumors are relatively harmless—annoying little things that people correct and move on. Others are harmful. A rumor some Facebook pages are sharing falls into the latter category. I believe that spreading it could hurt your Facebook business.
Here’s one version of the rumor that’s making the rounds. The good news is, if you’ve already shared it, there’s an easy remedy.
Facebook is now requiring page owners (us) to pay to have their status updates read by every subscriber. If we don’t, status updates only show up in less than 10% of newsfeeds, even though you have “liked” the page indicating you want to see posts from this page. However, there is a way around it. Hover over the button on this page where it says “Like” and then make sure you are check marked to “show in news feed”. It’s free! And, you won’t miss updates from our page. Do it to all of the pages you’ve “liked.”
The truth: Last year, Facebook started showing fans fewer page posts. The less fans interacted with a page, the fewer updates they saw from it. Last week—surprise, surprise—Facebook announced that pages can now pay to promote their posts. Pick a post from the last three days, pay a fee, and it’ll show up in all your fans’ news feeds.
The problem: That rumor update above claims that if fans just check “show in news feed,” they’re home free. But that’s not true.
- If fans are reading the post in their news feed, the “show in news feed” option is obviously already checked.
- As far as I can tell, it’s the default option anyway.
- Checking that option does NOT make all of a page’s posts show up. Telling fans it does makes them think they’re getting all your updates and may lull them into not doing what really works.
What to Tell Your Facebook Fans
Here’s what does work:
- Strategy one: Fans need to continually interact with your page. They can like, comment, share, click links, etc. Here are some ideas to get them to want to.
- Strategy two: Fans can now make interest lists that feature all the posts from whatever pages and profiles are included. For example, fans of The Survival Doctor (a page I consult on) could make a health or survivalist list. To see all the updates from those pages, they could just click on that list.
If your fans do these two things, they really are home free.
Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer and an expert in writing for the Internet. Her specialties include health, long-term care and aging issues.
This is what I have found, also. I did not jump on the bandwagon with sharing that post. My fan interaction dropped last year when they made the changes. I do plan to advertise on occasion. I have started creating lists for my pages – I had done the same things with my friends – creating groups for family, Etsy friends, etc. But I am not going to bother sharing with my fans. It’s way too complicated. Well, it’s not really that complicated, but I think many users are not in tune with these changes.
Thanks, Jane. I’m glad you’ve found the same things. True, I don’t think most people are aware of interest lists–or at least how to make them.
Leigh Ann Otte
Thanks for sharing this information Jane. How do you think this will pan out in the future? Do you think pages have a brighter or dim future on FB?