6 tips to keep your content top-of-stream

Guest post by Meghan Keaney Anderson
Hubspot

In late September news trickled out about a change in Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm that was causing big drops in reach for many branded pages for nonprofits, businesses and all organizations. The EdgeRank algorithm determines which posts are displayed in the newsfeed and in what priority order. Noticing a clear decrease in the reach and virality of pages, Beth Kanter took to Facebook to see if many nonprofits had experienced it. She received a number of replies affirming the dropoff, while others, like John Haydon at Socialbrite, say the evidence doesn’t support that claim.

What seems to have changed?

Both EdgeRank Checker and Post Rocket have good posts on the details, but in a nutshell, Facebook has altered the way it displays posts in the newsfeed to prioritize posts that have the greatest number of interactions – a cumulative figure determined by the number of clicks, likes, comments and shares a post receives. The new algorithm also factors in negative feedback and penalizes posts that have been actively hidden by viewers or reported as spam.

Regardless of whether Facebook’s code tweaking is having an impact on your fans’ newsfeeds, the real question now is: Short of paying for promoted posts, what can nonprofits do to adjust to these changes and make sure their content earns the sort of reach and virality needed to engage new volunteers, donors and advocates? Here are a few tips to keep in mind to help your content remain top-of-stream.

Audit your content

1The major point that emerges from Facebook’s explanation of the new algorithm is that posts with the most positive engagement in the form of clicks, likes, comments and shares will appear more often in the newsfeed, resulting in higher reach and virality. This could be a good thing for Facebook users. As more and more brands have ramped up their presence on Facebook, the newsfeed has become increasingly cluttered with content. The algorithm change was designed, at least in part, to reduce the noise in an individual’s newsfeed and give more prominence to really good content.

How to leverage it: Take 30 minutes to audit your content that has done well in the past on Facebook. Put your top content through each of the following questions and see where trends emerge.

• What common traits do the posts have in terms of subject matter or format?
• What tone did each of your top shares have? Were they urgent? Funny? Or did they raise questions for response?
• What was the call to action, if any? In her recent book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” Beth Kanter talks about a ladder of engagement, with smaller actions laying the foundation for larger ones. Where in the ladder of engagement would you place the calls to action of your top posts?

Once you have laid out your top posts and examined their tone, content and format, use any themes that emerged to map out your future posts.

Post at the optimal time to drive activity

2Because so much of the new algorithm depends on early activity, timing is just as important as content. In 2011, HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella conducted extensive research on the topic of social media timing. He studied more than 1.3 million posts from the 10,000 most-Liked Facebook pages to glean some larger trends in the timing of social shares. What he found for Facebook was that shares on average had the highest rate of activity during the weekend. It’s easy to forget about posting on weekends, but weekends are prime-time for engagement with newsfeed posts. Many offices still block Facebook during the workweek. Even for those who allow it, the weekend allows more time for individuals to browse and interact with posts.

How to leverage it: Use a social media scheduler to line up posts for the weekend. See How to schedule a Facebook page update, and see what kind of activity you get. Don’t rely on HubSpot’s research alone, however. Conduct your own experiments to see what days and times tend to see the highest activity within your office. Pull your top posts and see if any trends emerge in the timing of those with the most interaction. Similarly, pull posts that saw no engagement and try to identify black holes in your sharing schedule to avoid in the future. Here’s a look at HubSpot’s analysis, which I pulled together for this post.

As you can see, our posts seem to generate the most activity on Sunday, followed shortly after by Monday and Tuesday. We garner lower engagement toward the end of the week. I also took a look at the time of day when activity is highest for us. Sorted below in the HubSpot social media tool, you can see that we have had good success sharing content with our audience in the mornings.

Understand the behavior that leads to hide, hide-all, and unlike

3In addition to auditing what’s working with your shares, take a look at what would motivate a user to hide, hide-all or unlike your content. Hiding content is tantamount to deleting an email without reading it. Hiding-all is the equivalent of unsubscribing, and unliking closes the relationship entirely. In Facebook’s new algorithm, content that has negative feedback from some users can cause it to be minimized or pulled from all news feeds. Take a look at what could be causing people to hide or unlike your content. Are you posting too frequently? Try altering your schedule to add more space between your posts. Are you asking for too much? Compare posts with different calls to action to see what types cause hides or low engagement.

Post more images and videos

4Our research and our day-to-day experience shows that images and videos tend to have much higher engagement than text-only posts or links. Make sure you’ve got a healthy mix of images Below, an image from United Way of Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley (an organization I support) shows the value of volunteering. The image resulted in 30 likes and 3 comments, among the highest levels of engagement on their page. Want to make an image even stronger? Couple it with a relevant link to your volunteer page or another call to action.

Balance your content

5Trying out different types of content will help you see what posts work best. In addition, keeping a healthy balance of different types of posts can help you engage different people. Oxfam does a nice job with this on their Facebook page. Think about mixing your content up to meet the interests of a growing audience and to keep your Facebook page fresh. Incorporate:

• Blog posts
• Images with calls to action
• Videos
• Cause-driven items for purchase
• Quotes from supporters
• Profiles of the people you serve
• Questions for your fans and followers
• Responses to your fans and followers

Advise super-fans to add your organization to an interest list

6One sure-fire way for your top supporter to see all of your organization’s shares is to encourage them to add you to an interest list. Interest lists on Facebook organize all of your favorite topics and keep you from missing posts. Even better, if the interest list is left public, others can subscribe it – expanding your reach.

You can create your own interest list with partner organizations or nonprofits in your geographic area, then encourage others to subscribe to it. Lists turn Facebook into a media consumption channel in addition to a social network.

Keep calm and inspire on

This was not the first adjustment Facebook has made and it likely won’t be the last. The best response to this and any change from a third party platform is to dissect what drives the change and determine how your social media strategy can best adapt to accommodate it. Early on, the algorithm change raised concerns that purchasing promoted posts would be the only reliable way to maintain a presence in the Facebook newsfeed. But a closer look at the character of the change reveals a number of methods that nonprofits can use remain on top without having to dip into vital funds. Even with algorithm changes, the main tenet of social shares remains true: Interesting, remarkable content will always rise to the top.

Related

• 13 ways to boost your Facebook Page reach without spending a dime (Socialbrite)

The post How nonprofits can adapt to Facebook’s newsfeed changes appeared first on Socialbrite.

Tips for leveraging the power of Facebook at your nonprofit or school

Target audience: Nonprofits, universities, colleges, associations (including alumni associations), cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, Web publishers — and anyone with a Facebook page.

Guest post by Frank Barry
Director, Professional Services, Blackbaud

We already know that Facebook is crushing it, and that schools have an incredible opportunity to use the platform to deepen relationships with families, students and alumni. But is your school or nonprofit getting the most out of the platform? Are you using Facebook to its full potential?

Based on what I’ve seen I’d say there’s a high likelihood that you’re not.

But there is hope!

Among the countless schools I found using Facebook poorly, there were plenty of shining examples of schools doing a great job of utilizing Facebook to build lasting relationships with families, students and alumni (both university and K-12).

Here are some of the key findings and takeaways from my recent presentation on how schools can leverage Facebook.. Keep in mind that these tips also apply to any nonprofits trying to effectively use Facebook as part of their online strategy.

Make the most of your cover photo

1Your Facebook cover photo is prime real estate. It’s the thing that people will see first when they visit you on Facebook. Treat it like you would that area on your main website – you have two seconds to grab the attention you’re looking for.

When thinking through your Facebook cover photo, make sure you keep your brand in mind, but try to also show off your culture, history, mission and values. You might also try having a little fun with your cover photo. Here’s a few ways you could go about communicating these things:

• Show off your campus
• Highlight what you’re known for
• Include your students
• Show off landmarks
• Give parents an idea of the community they’ll be joining
• Promote key alumni
• Go off campus

Make sure the photo is high quality and sized correctly (851px x 315px).

Spice up your ‘About’ page

2One of the first things a new visitor will do on your Facebook page is check out your profile, even if it’s only a quick glance at the small box located right under your profile picture. Make sure you take full advantage of this area.

Here are a few tips to ensure your Facebook about section is filled out in a way that makes it useful to those who check it out:

• Tell your story (keep it short, but get the main points accross)
• Add your mission statement
• Make sure to include all your contact info (email, phone, etc.)
• Enter your address with map
• Include links to your website and other social networks
• Include calls to action just like you might on your website
• Add milestones

Tell your story by filling in your history and milestones

3Milestones give you the ability to tell people more about your history. Most schools (and nonprofits) have a long history of helping the community through impacting the people they serve. With that in mind, do your best to tell the world about the work you’re doing.

If you haven’t yet, think of at least five milestones that help tell your story then hop over to Facebook and fill them in. Use photos as much as possible.

Here are a few quick ideas to get the creative juices flowing:

• Date when school was founded
• Significant accomplishments, awards, recognitions, etc.
• Famous or well-known individuals/students
• Launch of new programs, colleges/schools, community work, etc.
• Significant sporting events
• Graduations
• New deans, principals, presidents, etc.
• Significant community outreach/serices/programs

Set up a few apps (the Facebook call to action)

4Apps (the icons you see above highlighted in the red box) are Facebook’s version of a call to action. Nonprofits (and schools) understand how to use calls-to-action in their appeals and other forms of asking their supporters to mobilize. Think about these “apps” in a similar way. Use them to get your Facebook fans to take the actions you want them to take.

Apps are also a great place to continue reinforcing your brand (see how well LIVESTRONG has done it in the image above?). You have the ability to use your own icons so you’re only limited by your imagination.

What types of things could you do here?

• Quick links to key resources
• News / Important info for students/families
• Social media policy
• Special offers, discounts, prizes, etc.
• Custom pages focused on what you know parents/students want
• Donate, subscribe, register, volunteer buttons

Make sure the photo is high quality and sized correctly (111px x 74px).

Get the most out of your posts

5Before you can engage your nonprofit’s or school’s supporters, students, teachers, families or alumni on Facebook, you have to build a relationship with them (on Facebook). This means that you can’t simply rely on them being fans, you have to get them to engage with your posts on a regular basis.

If your supporters don’t engage with you regularly, then even when you do post to your Facebook wall they won’t see what you’ve posted.

So how do you create more engagement?

• Pin posts you want people to see for a while. Pinning posts allows you to keep your more important message at the top of your Facebook page for seven days.
• Highlight your best posts. Highlighting posts give you the opportunity to make certain things stand out more than others on your Facebook page.
• Promote posts that need to reach the masses. Promoting posts gives you the opportunity to reach a much larger portion of your Facebook fan base. You can easily see a 50 percent increase.

There are a lot more factors that matter when it comes to creating engaged fans on Facebook. Check out 22 Ways to Stay Connected with Your School’s Alumni on Facebook for more on this topic.

Pay attention to your fans (a lot)!

6Getting your nonprofit’s or school’s Facebook fans to create content in the form of pictures, videos, status updates, questions, etc. and sharing on your Facebook page is arguably the top thing you should focus on when trying to build an effective presence on Facebook.

Facebook made that slightly more challenging with the introduction of Timeline. For brands (nonprofits, schools, etc.), Timeline makes it such that fan-initiated engagement and content takes a back seat to brand-initiated engagement and content. This means Facebook no longer puts fan posts directly into your wall now that they’ve rolled out Timeline to everyone.

If a fan posts something directly to your Facebook page (i.e., not in response via a Like, comment or share to something you’ve posted), it will show up in a small box that lives below the “number of people who like this” section in the right column. That means you need to actively monitor what your fans are doing on your page and, when appropriate, highlight their content.

Here’s how to highlight fan content: Go to the Admin bar at top of your page (you need to be logged in as an adminisrator for this). Then hit the Edit page button and Use Activity Log. You will see a screen similar to the one shown below.

Dig through the activity log to find posts from your fans that you want to highlight. Once you find something, you can select the little circle located to the right of the activity, click on it, and select Highlight on Page.

Bam! You’ve just made one lucky fan very happy!

The post 6 simple steps to create a Facebook page that just works appeared first on Socialbrite.