Facebook Changes and Your Promotion

by Donna Huber

The new year has brought changes on many different levels - new laws went into effect, personal resolutions were made, and Facebook policies changed. In my writing groups this change has been a hot topic for the past few months. It will definitely affect authors, but I think it will also cause issues with bloggers promoting their posts.

Facebook says the policy is to provide users with more of the content they want to see and less promotion. But really, Facebook is in the business of making money and not goodwill. Unless they are lying about showing more people paid for posts then your news feed will still show a number of promotional posts. Yet, it still might not be the posts you want to see. Do you want to see Target's promotional post? Or would you prefer to hear about the new book coming out from your favorite author? Most authors have a limited advertising budget and, therefore, won't be able to pay for as many promotional posts as big businesses like Target.

It is unclear what will happen to posts that promote other people's books, such as those posted by book bloggers. However, the fewer views on Facebook posts has been an ongoing issue for everyone that uses a fan page on Facebook. How much more will our views be lowered under the new policy? It is a waiting game to some extent, but there are a few things you can do to keep views high and traffic coming to your blog.

One, be social.

We know the more interaction a post gets the higher the views. Be sure you are liking, commenting, and sharing posts on other pages, but you can also like, comment, and share the posts from your fan page on your own time. Just change who your are posting as when liking or commenting on your own fan page post. I was able to have a post I did for an organization I manage reach twice the number of people that like the page just by sharing the post to my personal profile. If your personal profile posts are not usually public make sure your shared post is made as a public post.

Two, vary content.

I have written on this before. Your posts to Facebook should vary. If you are only posting links to your new blog posts then you need to change things up.  I'm participating in Fat Mum Slim's Photo A Day challenge. That provide a little different content. I'm also trying out videos. Yesterday I posted a video from Epic Reads and it did really well. Share videos from other Facebook pages or make your own. Many publishers also have YouTube channels where they post interviews and such.

Three, branch out.

During all the big business scandals like Enron, people found out the danger of not diversifying their stock portfolio. If you have been relying solely on Facebook to drive traffic to your blog, then it is time to think about branching out. Twitter continues to be the number one source of my blog traffic. Google+ has also seen increased activity in recent months. Whenever you are using free resources controlled by others you are always at their mercy. They have every right to change their policies and availability.


What changes are you implementing in your promotional posts?