The Absolute Worst Thing a Business Can Do on Social Media

If you were to ask me the number one mistake business owners make when trying to do their own social media, I might be tempted to say overselling their product or service. Social media is a networking tool, not a megaphone! Beyond that, there is one thing that is even worse: buying likes/followers. Here are my top four reasons why buying followers is a bad idea, and what business owners should do instead.

1. When you buy followers, they are usually FAKE. When I go through the thousands of followers a new client has purchased before hiring me, they're often extremely obvious bots. That, or they're accounts like my client's: they've given a paid like/follow service access to their account, and therefore their account has liked/followed thousands of similar accounts. They may also be "click farmers" - real people who are paid to like/follow a client's accounts. For more on click-farming, check out this excellent video by Veritasium.
2. Fake followers drive down post reach. Fake followers usually have absolutely no relevance to your business. Their only benefit is to drive up your overall follower counts. With social networks across the board implementing news feed algorithms, having thousands of fake followers who aren't engaging with your content often means that your post reach dwindles away to nothing.
3. Fake followers max out follow caps. If you purchase thousands of likes or follows from a spam service, chances are your account will follow thousands of accounts to get there, and you will quickly reach your follow limit on Twitter and Instagram. That will prevent you from following other accounts that are actually relevant to your business.
4. Buying fake followers can open you up to hackers and credit card fraud. As explained here, people who are willing to take your money to hook you up with fake followers may also be willing to sell your info to others. Stay safe! This aspect of the trade is especially troubling to me when I see my client's accounts followed real teens and even tweens who only posted a few times on Instagram and had clearly used the same follower purchasing company to drive up their numbers.

Instead of buying fans and followers from a shady service who tags you in a post or direct messages you, here's what to do instead:

• Generate organic social media growth by following and engaging with legitimate accounts.
• Create extremely targeted ads through native ad platforms to attract legitimate fans/followers. Yes, you may still get a few fake followers this way, but the more specific you are (think demographics, regions, interest keywords, languages spoken, etc) the more likely you are to find real people.
• Instead of paying someone with questionable ethics to get a few hundred or a few thousand fake followers, hire a real social media manager to create both organic and paid social media growth.

Don't Wait to Get Started on Social Media

One thing I hear fairly often when talking with business owners, especially small, family-owned businesses, is that they are so busy and that business is going so well that they don't need social media. And/or that they'll wait until their slower season to get started. Here's why I encourage them not to wait.

If you haven't been on social media at all during your busy season, it's going to be a rough start during your slow season. That's because of the algorithm that determines whether or not people see your posts. Facebook has had them for a while, and Twitter and Instagram are getting started now too. One of the main factors that influence the algorithms is whether or not someone has interacted with you recently. When you haven't been online for a while, or ever, your posts are less relevant and have less of a chance of showing up in people's feeds.

The busy season is the best time to capitalize on existing customer engagement. When you're busy, you can extend customer interactions to the social space, or find and celebrate existing social interactions that you may not even be aware of, and increase your visibility. Capturing those positive interactions with your fans now will keep them interacting with you during your slow season, and generate viral reach to their friends.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and socialize!

If you need help, I'm always happy to answer questions.

A Quick & Simple Way to Generate Facebook Page Engagement

Because of the way Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm filters the News Feed, Page managers need to be creative to generate authentic engagement. One quick and easy technique, especially for smaller businesses and solopreneurs, is to send individual Facebook post links to family, friends and customers to ask for engagement. If you're annoyed that people who might particularly be interested in a certain post aren't seeing it, make it happen by sending them the direct link to that post. 

The timestamp to the post is the link. You can either right click on it and use your browser's dropdown menu to copy the link, or left click to open the individual post and copy the url from there. (Click here to see what that looks like.)

This technique works best when you choose a post that has particular meaning for the person or people you're sending the link to, and when you provide a specific call to action. For example, a skincare representative might send the link to a post about a particular product to a client who has used that product, and ask her to share her experience in a comment on the post. Or an auto mechanic might post a photo of a client's car and send him the link, asking him to like or share the post to his friends.

Since EdgeRank factors in a person's recent engagement with the Page to determine whether they should see more posts from it, this technique will also make the people you send post links to more likely to see your posts in the future. It's the engagement gift that keeps on giving!

Local TV Stations & Facebook Calls to Action

Local news agencies are making the most of their Facebook posts by using specific, targeted calls to action. This often takes the form of asking fans' opinions on controversial or positive topics. In many cases, however, this means benefiting from bad news by asking fans to share their condolences and sympathy in response to tragedies. Whether the topic is positive, controversial or tragic, these specific prompts serve two purposes: generating engagement, which boosts the Pages' EdgeRank, and reducing the likelihood of off-topic remarks and flame wars in the comments. Below are examples of calls to action from the four major TV news outlets in the Seattle area.

Among local news outlets in this area, CBS affiliate KIRO 7 seems most likely to prompt for responses to tragedies, such as this death in a car accident. Calls to action on tragic events like this draw an outpouring of support for those affected, but often a few negative comments towards the station for trying to benefit from a tragedy. In a formula that covers all the bases, KIRO's post uses a photo that appears to be pulled from the young man's Facebook profile, includes both a link to the story online and a prompt to watch the news story on TV, and closes with the call to action.

NBC affiliate KING 5 takes advantage here of a topic residents love to talk about - bad drivers! The photo they used is likely a screengrab from the news story. They lead the post with their excellent call to action that requests a specific type of feedback on a particular and popular topic.

ABC affiliate KOMO 4 taps into the popular throwback trend here. In a smart move that will increase their EdgeRank even further, KOMO's call to action requires users to engage with the photo they shared in order to answer the prompt. Like their friends at CBS, KOMO phrases their call to action as a statement rather than a question.

In their rather bland, cookie-cutter call to action, and accompanied by a stock photo, Fox affiliate Q13 comes across sounding like a psychologist. While people (dare I say Fox viewers in particular?) may have strong opinions about how the new Mayor is paying aides compared to the outgoing mayor, a clearer, more specific prompt would have been more effective here.

When crafting calls-to-action for your own Facebook Page, keep these examples in mind and strive to do the following: ask for responses to interesting, engaging topics, play with using statements vs. questions, tap into people's emotions, and ask for specific feedback.

How to Use Current Fans to Get New Facebook Fans

My parents always told me it's easier to get a job when you have a job, and I know from personal experience that it's unfortunately easier to find suitors when you're in a relationship than when you're single. That's because having a job or a partner shows people that you are a caring, competent individual with certain skills - someone they want to hire and be around. When you're employed or in a relationship, chances are you are focusing on those relationships instead of desperately marketing yourself in an attempt to get seen. The same goes for social media - in order to get new fans interested in you, you need to engage your current fans. 

Having a huge fan base is great, especialky in the eyes of executives, but if none of them are liking and commenting on posts or posting on your wall, that means diddly. If people aren't engaging with your page, chances are they aren't even seeing your posts in their News Feed either. In the battle for EdgeRank, a Page with 200 active fans is always going to win out over a Page with 2,000 inactive fans. An inactive Page not only suffers in terms of EdgeRank and viral reach - potential new fans who visit the Page see it as stagnant, not a community of fans they would like to join.  

One of the most important statistics in your Facebook Insights is "Friends of Fans." Think of that number as the potential reach of your posts, if your fans interact with them. It's also a pool of potential new fans. My Page, for example, has less than 100 fans, but they have a total of 48,171 friends. If I hit a grand slam and all 95 of my fans liked or commented on a post, that would be the total viral reach. Pretty huge, right?

So before you spend a single cent on Facebook advertising or bemoan your small number of fans, beef up your posting strategy. Post content that is designed for engagement and your EdgeRank and viral reach will increase, and eventually so will your fan base.

Anatomy of a Facebook Birthday

Since Facebook came out with the Wall, one of the best days in the average Facebook user’s year has been her birthday. Users that list their birthdays on their profile are delighted when their friends, seeing the convenient notice in the top right corner of their news feed, post best wishes on their walls. The phenomenon has become so popular that Facebook created a special news feed post reminding people of their friends’ birthdays and telling them how many mutual friends have written on the birthday girl’s wall. These days, Facebook often combines the notice of a friend’s birthday in the news feed with her most recent wall post.

As a Facebook aficionado (ok fine, addict), I enjoy analyzing the pattern of Facebook wall posts on my wall and my friends’. Birthday wall posts are generated a few ways:

Upcoming Events/Birthday Box Reminder

 

News Feed Reminder

Mutual Friend Wall Post Reminder

Belated (Seeing a Birthday Girl's Thank You Post and Commenting or Posting)

 

I celebrated a birthday last week, and decided to analyze the date and time I received wall posts, to determine how many posts were randomly generated (#1) and how many were generated because they saw friends’ wall posts or news feed reminders. 

The chart below shows the birthday wall posts I received organized by my various friend groups. There were only a few wall post groupings by mutual friends (shown in yellow). The analysis also demonstrated the more active times among my friends, which were especially interesting in relation to the friend groups. One grouping in particular highlighted in red, consisted of friends who were members of the same group (high school friends) but actually were not friends with each other. 

Most of the birthday wall posts I received appear to be randomly generated. I have noticed, however, that Facebook gives additional weight to birthday posts in the news feed, displaying the new special birthday notices in non-synchronous order even in "most recent" view. Therefore, the Birthday wall is a perfect demonstration of the power of edgerank, Facebook's ability to manipulate data for maximum engagement and the weight of the top right corner birthday event reminders. 

Happy Birthday everyone!