Engagement is the True Indicator of Success! Agree?

6 KEY METRICS TO MEASURE FACEBOOK SUCCESS!

#1. FAN REACH

#2. ORGANIC REACH

#3. ENGAGEMENT

#4. PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THIS

#5. CLICK THROUGH RATE

#6. NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

I hear you ask “Is there one missing from the list?”, “likes are surely, the main metric to measure for success”, the simply answer is No, Likes are not a true indicator of success when it comes to how well your page is performing, the six metrics I have mentioned above truly reflect how your customers view and interact with you page, they also identify if your audience is a “true” audience or one simply purchased or made up of your friends! While friends are important, you must ask yourself “are they truly my customers”, “can they ever convert to customers” or do I simply have the greatest friends who support my every post! 

Its ok to have friends interacting on your business page as they offer a vehicle to spread the word about your products / business and help generate stories to reach your non-fans who may otherwise not know you exist! Facebook is designed in such a way that our personal and business pages are intricately linked (you currently can’t create a business page without a personal profile, business pages are not enabled to invite friends to like the page, you can invite friends of your personal page to like your business page but not other businesses!).

Those tentative steps setting up your business page I am sure were the same for most us! our first port of call was to invite all our friends to “Like” our new page, an inexpensive way to get our story out there! But there comes a time when you need to analyse your audience! Engagement or lack of engagement will determine how successful your business page will be in the long term and whether you achieve your business goals! Let us not take for granted the power of Facebook, there are currently 1.3 million users in Ireland alone! (SocialBakers.com, November, 2016)

Facebook’s algorithm Edgerank will reward engagement and punish lack of engagement, post content which truly engages its fans and non-fans alike will feature prominently in newsfeeds! More people will be presented with your posts, creating greater opportunities to target a wider audience and convert non-fans to fans, the more engaging your posts the less likely people are to unsubscribe, I should mention here post success is not all down to content quality, if you have the wrong “Fans” / audience then no matter what you post your engagement rates will be low!

Posts which display low engagement rates will slowly disappear from the newsfeed of your fans, Facebook aims to put the most relevant stories in front of you and your fans via newsfeed, Facebook determines your preferences by the content you are engaged with, the more you are engaged with content the greater the visibility of this in newsfeed! Have you ever noticed suggested pages! These pages are suggested to you by Facebook based on the content you are interacting with, during my pregnancies (3 in total!), I liked and commented on every baby related Facebook page / post, my newsfeed was predominately baby related from maternity clothing sites to breastfeeding support group pages! Once I finished having babies and thought I got the hang of this baby thing! I no longer interacted with these pages / posts and slowly these evaporated from my newsfeed without me ever clicking a button!!

Think of your Facebook newsfeed as your personal social newspaper, you decide the content! Have this in mind when creating content for your fans and non-fans, aim to create shareable content always! Here are a few ideas as to now you can engage your audience! Firstly, know what is valuable to your audience! Create content around your value offering! Why not try uploading a video “behind the scenes – offer an insight into your business”, video is an emerging trend, it offers an interactive vehicle to engage your customers, have a go! Experiment with different post types! Don’t be afraid to show your personality, remember Facebook is predominantly a social networking site, so get creative, asks questions, run polls / quizzes!

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to check out my Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/sineadfannonmarketing for Free Marketing Tips & Advise! Add a comment if there is a topic you wish for me to add to my blog! I’m here to help!