This is post number three in a series of posts from Facebook expert Tommy Walker. If you have questions, leave a comment here or visit with Tommy on Twitter at @tommyismyname.
- Log into Facebook. Scroll down the page.
- When you find something that grabs your attention, stop.
- Take a note as to why you stopped.
Repeat steps 1-3.
The main issue most Page admins have using Facebook for business…
is they try to be like everyone else. We’ve all been reading the same advice, “Ask questions, post interesting updates, people will interact and your page will eventually grow to be hugely popular”
But anyone who has ever run a Page knows this simply isn’t true.
There is nothing more embarrassing than asking questions nobody answers.
So what happens? If you’re a human being, you stop asking questions…
If you continue creating content that you believe to be interesting, and nobody interacts with it, eventually you’ll stop publishing it to Facebook and say that your target audience isn’t there.
I’ve seen it a thousand times.
This leaves Page admins scratching their heads.
They wonder, “Why if x amount of people opted in by “liking” my Page, they must have thought at least something I said would be interesting, how come nobody is interacting with my stuff?”
Chances are, you are not optimizing for the News Feed.
The purpose of the exercise at the beginning is not to figure out what you find interesting, it’s to find what grabs your attention.
Facebook’s News Feed is a very busy place. With all the links, pictures, statuses from friends and family- getting a potential customer to interact is kind of like talking to someone ten feet away at a Lady Gaga concert
But… if you know what grabs your attention, chances are, you know what grabs your fans attention.
Getting attention is the first step to interaction. And I imagine we all subscribe to the same school of thought when it comes to marketing, so the next logical conclusion we can make is… More interaction means more sales.
To recap:
Attention—>Interaction—>Sales
So how do we get attention on Facebook?
Believe it or not, it’s actually very simple to get people’s attention on Facebook.
All it takes is smart use of Photos Albums, Video, Slideshare Presentations, Photos on your blog, and all of those other things that Twitter can’t do.
Yep I went there.
Now before the Twitter evangelists start pulling out the pitchforks and set fire to the comments, I want you to consider the work that you put into just an average blog post.
- You mull over writing a catchy headline, deleting and rewriting until you think it will grab peoples attention where ever you publish it.
- You spend hours writing a post, making sure it’s perfectly optimized for both humans and search engines.
- You spend even more time finding images that you hope will retain your readers attention.
- You further optimize your post by crafting a keyword rich title and meta description with the Seo Plugin tool of choice.
- Not to mention the time you spent putting serious thought into your blog’s url when you first bought your domain
Vs
Don’t get me wrong, I love twitter! But the site is so very text dependent, that as a traffic source, it’s only showcasing about 1/5 of the effort you put into your blog post when you use it as a promotional tool.
The blog post on the other side of the link is the same, however by design, Facebook showcases more of the effort you’ve put in to creating it.
Thinking just a little extra 4th dimensionally about how you select your images when you craft a blog post, can dramatically increase your ability to stand out and get more interaction.
Attention is an all out war
If you want to stand out, you can’t just wait for the world’s most popular blogger to stumble upon you and hand you the “instant success retweet”. You have to consistantly attack with the calculated precision of a Jedi surrounded by an army of drones.
Because let’s face it, pretty much all social media streams are full of drones. And your future on any given day could depend on whether you’re able to defeat those drones and prove that your words are as deadly as a lightsaber.
You can’t just blog about anything and expect it to succeed. Blogging isn’t about publishing content on a regular basis, any more than being a Jedi is about the act of wielding a lightsaber. It’s about focus, concentration, and knowing how to influence and break the patterns of normal observation to implant ideas to progress the agenda of a greater good.
This means spending hours finding the right photo, instead of 30 minutes.
This means networking with other Page admins every week, not once a month.
This means asking people to share your content without shame or reservation. Not because you’re a beggar, but because you know deep down in the very fiber of your being that the content you update on a regular basis is good and will be useful to the people within your community.
You have to realize that your Page is not just a culmination of “likes”, but there are real human beings that raised their hands and said they want to hear what you have to say. It’s more than just arbitrary status updates, it’s a place for people to connect with your ideas and with each other, and you are the Jedi fighting drones ensuring when they log in, their time isn’t wasted.
So burn it up, baby.
Your fans are counting on you.
P.s I know I detailed only one way to stand out, but that’s because I’ve already published all the others I mentioned. You could dig through my archives and guest posts, or you purchase, for just $20, all of my News Feed Hacks in one place