Today, Facebook updated the way Facebook Pages behave when linked with web pages. I’m not sure how I feel about it. This discussion is Elevated on the newly-founded Nerd Alert scale, so you’re in for a wild ride.
First, the back story.
See that nifty little “Like” button to the right? That’s a bit of code that connects my web page to Facebook. It’s part of a suite of plugins that link websites with Facebook pages.
I launched Web Marketing Nerd the day before the plugin was released. Here’s how the following days went down:
Day 1: I’d created a Fan Page the day before, which had a whopping 12 fans by the end of the day.
Day 2: I find a couple of properties in the Open Graph schema (nerd talk for “how Facebook categorizes things online”) that let webmasters define what type of object a “Like” button is referring to (i.e. movies, people, or in my case, a blog) and add an administrator for that particular object. I set myself as the admin and identify my website as a blog using Facebook’s terminology.
Later that day, I notice that all of the people who once “Liked” my Web Marketing Nerd fan page on Facebook were removed. I am puzzled, so I click “Like.” An “admin page” option appears. Intrigued, I click it and I’m taken to a NEW Web Marketing Nerd fan page, automatically generated by the Like plugin when I made the switch to identifying Web Marketing Nerd as a blog rather than a public figure as I had originally set it up. Seeing the value in linking my page with my website, I like this idea.
Days 3 through 10: I publish great content, build up a modest fan base, and secure a username for my page, facebook.com/webmarketingnerd
And that brings us to today.
What changed (and what it means).
Today, I typed “Web Marketing Nerd” into Facebook’s search box, just like I always do to check on my page. I pressed the Return key, waited a moment, and I arrived at the Web Marketing Nerd website. ”How silly,” I thought. ”I must have typed it into the location bar from my browser.” I went back to Facebook and tried again. Same result. Hello, website.
I clicked posts that my friends and I have tagged with The Web Marketing Nerd page. They all took me to the website. I clicked links to the page. They were all redirecting me to the website. Friends confirmed the behaviour.
This, I’m sure, is dependent on my particular page configuration. I set up the Like plugin on my website, which automatically created the Facebook page. This is a special case, but let’s take a look at the pros and cons.
That’s great for web traffic…
Facebook is sending traffic to our websites. That’s great.
…but not great for our fans.
Our readers connect to us on Facebook so they can hear from us on Facebook.
That makes News Feed Optimization more important than ever.
The Magic Formula to getting seen on Facebook: Σ(uwd). This is the EdgeRank formula, wrapped up as “To appear on the News Feed, content needs to be personal, relevant, and recent.”
If my readers cannot visit my page, that means my content must be relevant enough to appear on their News Feeds. Since the first element of the EdgeRank algorithm is user affinity, though, that means that one determining factor in content appearing on the News Feed is how often our connections interact with our Pages. For that reason, our content would be more likely to show up on the News Feeds of connections who visit our pages regularly.
Hence, since our content only reaches people who engage with us, no harm is done by restricting access to that page.
What you need to do about it
Whether your page is configured like mine or not, News Feed Optimization is essential to creating an engaging community. That means you need to focus on content that is:
- Personally Relevant
- Interesting (as in the type of content you’re creating)
- Delivered in a time frame in which your community is likely to consume it.
To find out the optimal type of content to post and when you’ll see the most engagement, use tools like Insights to measure the response you’re seeing from your connections based on the content that you’re sharing. Do they respond to photos more than videos? Do they prefer educational content to entertainment, or vice versa? Lastly, when are your visitors checking their Facebook accounts? Recent information is more relevant to readers, to the time at which you post content is important as well.
Measurement is tricky. Reaching your customers is more difficult. The data–as well as common sense–all points to one thing, though: customer-centric content is necessary to encourage customers to engage with your brand. Serve your fan base and they will promote you.
Questions, comments, concerns? Weigh in below.
