Facebook sucks. Their news feed algorithm copies gambling methods to create psychological cravings. You can’t see all the posts from sources you’re following, only the “best” ones. You refresh your feed, and voila - something new that was previously hidden shows up. Fanpages have to pay to boost the “reach” of their posts. To top it Facebook is hoarding the content, so Syften can’t support it.
It’s possible though that your audience hangs out on a Facebook Group. Tough luck! Tougher still when you realise most Facebook Groups are run by businesses. Businesses that don’t want you to lure away their potential customers. If you advertise directly, you’ll easily get banned. Luckily, you can also easily achieve this:
How nice.
The problem with Facebook Groups
There is little organic initiative on Facebook Groups. Most threads are started by admins to keep the group alive. And most replies are one sentence long. When was the last time you saw an in-depth discussion on Facebook?
But that problem is an opportunity. It’s easy to shine. Have a look:
Easy.
Remember the lessons from How to Win Friends and Influence People and give people what they want. Help the admins create a respectable community and write a thorough comment once in a while. Later, when you post a link to your website, they’ll let it slide.
How to get started
- Search for groups relevant to your interests and jump through the hoops required to apply.
- Rate the groups taking into account membership size and how active they are. Organic threads are better than admin-created threads. Most groups you’ll find will be dead.
- Write answers longer than a few words. How easy is that?
- After people get to know you and your “newbie” badge disappears you can create a thread.
- It’s ok to include links in your post, as long as they really sense.
A few phrases to try
When you post make sure that nobody needs to visit your blog. Treat other people like you’d like to be treated yourself. They’re just as intelligent as you are and will see through your crap just as well as you see through the crap of others.
Try these phrases at the end of your post. Why at the end and not the beginning? To change an “oh, he wants me to click, better be careful” to “that was enlightening. Oh, there may be more?”.
- “Note: There are screenshots that accompany this content but I can’t post them here”. Nevertheless, include links to those screenshots in the Facebook post.
- “Facebook has limited formatting. You can read the article on my better-looking blog here”. But still do the best you can.
- “If you found this post by searching the archive you can find an up-to-date version on my blog” or “As I do more research I’ll update this post on my blog”.
Some people advocate something like this:
- “20 tips to boost your growth. Here are the first 10, for the full list see my blog”.
But how did reading this feel?