Breaking Up?

 

It takes a lot for me to stop liking a friend, but I’m really ticked off at someone in my life. In fact, this former friend is jumping up and down on my last nerve so much I’m thinking about breaking up.

Who is this terrible friend, you might ask?

FACEBOOK

Recently Facebook has changed its policies for public pages, and I’m wondering if it’s still worth it. For example, we have over 800 likes on Facebook, but a post I checked last night was only seen by 11 people.

I wondered how this is even possible, and here is a video I watched from Rob Eager’s Monday Morning Marketing Tip that explains. (Please take a few minutes…it was completing eye-opening and surprising information for me.)

Note: If you are a subscriber, click on the title to watch the video and read the remainder of the post.

You can also click here to see what Rob has to say. (While you’re there, sign up for his Monday email…so worth the time every week!)

If you have a private page, some of these problems aren’t as acute for you, but if you have a public page, it’s a huge problem unless you want to pay for your posts to be “boosted”.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are you still in love with Facebook? Do you have a private page or a public page? Do you still think using Facebook to get your message out as a speaker or author is worth it?

Also, as some of you may or may not be aware, Facebook is only allowing about 10% of our audience to view our posts on their News Feed. That means about 90% of you may miss a new post from us on your News Feed unless you go directly to our page. To ensure you are receiving the latest updates with daily encouragement and links to fabulous resources:

  1. Head over to the Next Step Speaker Services Facebook page.
  2. Click on “Like” if you haven’t already. If you have, skip to the next step.
  3. Click on the arrow (or gear?) beside “Like”.
  4. Click on “Add to Interest Lists”
  5. Follow the directions through, and you will see your Interest List on the left side of your News Feed.

If you’d like more information on Interest Lists, here’s the scoop from Facebook.

What are Interest Lists?

Interest lists are an optional way to organize the content you’re interested in on Facebook. You can create your own interest lists based on the things you care about. For example, you could create a Top Favorite Apps list that features all the apps you play and like.

When you create list, you’ll see the best posts from that list in your main news feed. Your lists will also appear in the Interests section of your bookmarks. Simply click the list’s name to see all the recent posts and activity from the Pages featured in the list, without overwhelming your main news feed.

How do I create an Interest List?

  1. Go to your Interests page and click the Add Interests button.
  2. Click Create List.
  3. Search for the Pages you want to add to your list using the search box at the top of the screen, or use the categories on the left to browse.
  4. After you’ve selected all of the things you want to include on your list, click next.
  5. Pick a name for your list.
  6. Select a privacy setting (learn more). Choose Public if you want others to be able to subscribe to the list you’ve created.
  7. Click Done.

 

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8 Comments

  1. I’m so glad you brought this issue to our attention. I was getting very discouraged by how few people were seeing my posts. I noticed that on my private page I did get more engagement than on my public Making It Real Ministries page – even though I have a lot of crossover followers. Your article and the videos you linked to explain so much.
    I’d ditch FB altogether except when I did my reader survey via my blog, I found out 40% of my blog subscribers found me via a FB link. My followers are just not on Twitter – even though I much prefer Twitter to FB now that I’ve begun using it. Guess I will bring this issue to the attention of my followers and ask them to please engage so that my content is able to be seen by more of my followers. I refuse to pay FB and reward their unethical behavior.
    I’m bummed I’m not able to attend SheSpeaks but I’m seriously working on building my ministry, paying off the expenses related to self-publishing my book earlier this year, and finding more balance between the ministry and my family life. I’ve already set a goal to attend in 2015, though!

  2. I am so glad you brought this up! I hope more people join in the conversation. I don’t know what to do! I’m trying to build my audience but the Page seems to have very limited access to people. On the other hand, I wonder if I posted to it A LOT (like 4 times a day), if it would end up getting more interaction with people? Or would people just be annoyed? Furthermore, that’s a lot of work. And I’m not opposed to work, but I still have a regular job and 3 kids and I’m trying to build my speaking/writing on the side… so I have to really choose wisely what I spend my time on. I wish we could know for sure how this can work for us without paying money. 🙁 Wish I could, but I can’t!

    1. Angie, you bring up a great point. Does anybody else in the conversation know if more posting increases the chances of your post being seen? One of the tools I use for Next Step is Hootsuite which allows me to schedule posts to FB and Twitter. That means I can sit down and schedule content for a week in one fell swoop. That really helps with time management.

      Renee Swope is managing the Proverbs 31 FB page now and is doing a fabulous job. I’m going to check with her to see if she or one of her team can teach us from their success on FB. I think there are some strategies that can help overcome the problems.

  3. This explains so much Amy! I have a public ministry page that I am in the process of renaming and updating. Right now I am working on a Masters degree as part of my ministry journey and so the page was a great way to still post and write without trying to keep up the demands of a full blog or website. But I have noticed that only a very few people actually see the posts when I write. This explains so much. I am not sure what I will do. Definitely something to think about!

    1. Brandee, I’m going to try to get more info for all of us. P31 is setting the world on fire with their FB page, so I’ll see if one of the team will visit with us here.

      1. That sounds awesome! I signed up for the FB training at She Speaks in July as well. It is a way I can still do something without it being so much work right now. I didn’t really want to pay but it is disheartening when only a handful of people actually see when I post.

  4. Hi Amy, thanks for the tips. I have believed for some time they were doing this because I hardly ever see the posts from pages I’ve liked. I quit putting links to my blog for that very reason. I was in the process of creating a page to be linked to my website. Maybe I should rethink??!

    Christy

    1. Christy, I haven’t decided about how I’ll use Facebook in the future either. I haven’t completely given up on it, but I don’t like the new limitations either as a user or a “receiver”.