Social media marketing is all the rage right now and most people who own websites are trying to ramp up their traffic by using social networking sites like Facebook. But it’s not just about trying to get as many “likes ” as possible. In fact, you can have 1 million fans on your Facebook page, but if no one is seeing your updates in their feed than it really only gives you bragging rights.
Let me also just say that it really is ridiculous to try to buy “likes ” from people on forums. There has not been any credible proof that these fakes “likes ” will benefit you in any substantial way as far as SEO goes, and it certainly will not help you with your Facebook marketing.
When we talk about marketing your website on Facebook it’s all about interaction. Rather than focusing on getting as many people liking your page as possible you should be trying to get as many people leaving comments and clicking photos and links on your Facebook page.
Facebook has their own SEO algorithm that’s called edgerank. Edgerank consists of 3 different factors that determine what results show up in your news feed. These factors are affinity, edge weight, and time decay. Affinity is calculated by how much your fans click on your links, photos, and videos, and how much they have commented on your status. If no one ever has any interest in what you have on your fan page and never clicks any links or looks at any photos then you will not have any affinity. This is the number one factor in getting more traffic to your site through Facebook. Edge weight means that different actions on Facebook carry a different amount of weight, and this data is personalized as well. So if you like to see photos more than videos then you are more prone to see photos in your news feed. And time decay means that over time your status updates will slowly lose their position on someone’s news feed until they no longer see it at all.
So you see that Facebook marketing is not about spamming other Facebook users with comments about your website and leaving links on other people’s fanpages . That practice will just make you look like a jerk and could even get you in big trouble with Facebook by having your page shut down.
You should make every effort to increase your edgerank by posting updates that your fans actually care about. Even if the feedback you get from your fans is negative it will help your edgerank since they are at least leaving comments. Sometimes it’s best to stir up a little controversy before you post a big announcement on your page so you can build up some affinity and therefore get more exposure to your message.
You should also take into account what time of day most of your fans are making actions on your fanpage so you know what times of day are best for posting messages. If you don’t have a lot of affinity right now for your page you can post messages at more obscure times hoping that since the updates are new they will at least show up in a few fan’s news feeds and you can build up your edgerank this way.
The next time you are tempted to run some gimmick to get more “likes ” to your Facebook page, remember that it is better to have 100 fans that see your updates than 1 million fans that never see any updates at all.
Philip writes about how to protect your identity on Facebook and also reviews some of the best identity theft protection services so consumers can make more informed decisions.
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