When it comes to marketing on Facebook, it’s not your skills as a marketeer that matters the most. It is the skills of the end user that determines whether your marketing efforts will succeed or fail. The lowest common denominator in marketing is the skills of the end user.
Marketing on Facebook, despite all you have heard about Facebook Edgerank, all comes down to one simple setting. Take a look at what is in the red circle. What do you notice? Click on it.
Do you see what I mean? It is the default setting for everyone’s Facebook News Feed. And what is the default setting set to?
The default setting is “Top Stories”. Why is this a problem? An informal survey of my participants revealed that 80% of them did not know that these settings were even there. By the way, these are smart business people who simply did not know that these settings existed. The end result is that if you are not creating “Top Stories” in you Facebook marketing, there’s a good chance that your efforts are not going to be noticed. If you do not create a Top Story, then you are relying on the end-user switching to the “Most Recent” setting to see your marketing. Good luck with that!
You can be all fancy “Like Mick Jagger” in your Facebook marketing efforts, but be stopped dead in your tracks by the lowest common denominator; the skills of the end user on Facebook. You simply cannot rely on the end user being knowledgeable about these settings. You are going to have to educate them about there existence….. Or you are going to have to create Top Stories as much as possible.
In the Wednesday social media program in Halifax, the class participants discussed this Facebook marketing concern. We talked about how to create Top Stories and the different ways that we could make them. It was our job to educate our customers on Facebook as much as possible. We also talked about all the competition we have for creating top stories. Have you given this much consideration?
Our competition
There is serious competition to our Facebook marketing from people posting cute cat photos, and stuff like that, on Facebook. Not only do marketeers have to deal with the evil Facebook EdgeRank, they have to compete with people throwing cat photos and the like on Facebook.
The bottom line for a serious Facebook marketeer is creating Top Stories as much as possible. Marketeers need to learn how to create Top Stories that get seen. It’s not good enough just to Promote the Post. You actually have to put a long of thought into what you are putting on Facebook. If it is spammy, people can now tell Facebook why they don’t like it. That won’t go well with your efforts or your Facebook Page.
Here are some things to think about before you post something on Facebook:
- Is it good enough for you to share? Would you share it?
- Is it good enough to add a comment to the post? You you comment on it?
- Is it good enough to “Like”? Would you click th e”Like” button?
But a the end of the day, the end user and there skills play a major role in Facebook marketing. Either you make “Top Stories” all the time [as much as possible], or you educate them on how to find your stuff. Don’t count too much on the end user putting a lot of effort into finding your stuff [hint].
