Does Using a 3Rd Party Api to Publish to Facebook Decrease Engagement? Update!  Maybe Not.

Facebook claims they fixed the bug causing updates posted by 3rd party applications (like Hootsuite, Twitter, TweetDeck, etc.) to have 80% lower engagement than those posted directly on Facebook. Despite EdgeRank Checker tentatively agreeing (sort of), I’m skeptical.

We hypothesized that there were four possible reasons why this was happening:

1. Facebook penalizes 3rd party API’s EdgeRank – FIXED
2. Facebook collapses 3rd Party API updates
3. High chance of being scheduled or automated
4. Content is not optimized for Facebook

First of all, as they mention, they’re comparing apples to oranges. Impressions are a measure of who sees the content. Engagement is a measure of who interacts with the content. In addition, the actual algorithm penalizing apps is only part of the problem.

Given that:

1. to my knowledge, Facebook is still collapsing 3rd party updates,
2. the actual quality of the posts is often worse, and
3. people have the ability to hide all updates by certain apps from their feed,

I still believe 3rd party posted content will receive fewer impressions and (especially) engagement than content posted directly through Facebook and formatted accordingly.

Link to the study by EdgeRank Checker.

Facebook’s Hybrid News Feed Has Smaller Pages Swimming Upstream

Facebook released the hybrid news feed in September 2011. A subsequent month-long study found that “most Pages experienced a decrease in impressions, while larger Pages (especially those with 100k+ fans) tended to experience an increase in engagement.”

Link to the study by EdgeRank Checker.

Keep in Mind What Fans Are Expecting When They Like Your Page

• 33% of consumers say “When I want to communicate with a brand, I post on the brand’s Facebook Page.”

Source: CMO Council

• 47% of consumers say “When I connect with a brand online for a customer service or support issue, I expect answers within 24 hours.”
• 67% of consumers say “When I Like a brand on Facebook, I expect to be eligible for exclusive offers.”
• When it comes to “why I Like a brand” (what consumers said), vs. “why we think people Like brands” (what marketers said), marketers and consumers are on very different “pages” (pun intended).

Link to the study by CMO Council (PDF).

Why Fans Are Unfollowing Your Brand on Facebook & How to Stop Them

• 46% – The information was not interesting.
• 46% – The information was published too often.
• 39% – The brand is no longer of interest to me.
• 23% – The brand published information I did not appreciate.
• 14% – Information was not published often enough.

“Engagement in Facebook brands’ walls is down 22%,” said Syncapse CEO Michael Scissons. “But declining engagement has less to do with brand fatigue in general than with marketers doing a bad job and shoving boring [content] at consumers.”

“At DDB, Bernbach taught us to behave with respect for the consumer, recognizing that brands are in the hands of consumers, not marketers. Facebook is making it more relevant than ever today. Brands got blinded by the technology, forgetting about the basics of relationships in the way they interacted with consumers,” said Sebastian Genty, DDB’s planning director. “They need to learn to behave like any human being, with respect and transparency. Rhythm is key, as in any new relationship.”

Link to the Study by DDB & Oppinionway.

So What Have We Learned?

• Increase your Affinity score by consciously working to get fans engaged on an ongoing basis.
  • There’s nothing worse than being boring! Be interesting and controversial. Start a debate. Ask questions. Have people fill in the blank. Create a poll. Post trivia and quizzes.
  • Respond to Likes on posts with questions and always respond to comments to keep the conversation going.
  • Give things away and offer discounts. When you do, use the words  ”coupon” and ”$ off” (not % off). Here are 26 ideas and an app to help you out.
  • Promote your Page offline, on your website and use the Open Graph to make it easy for your fans to participate outside of Facebook.
• Improve Edge Weight by posting photos, videos and links which generally have the highest Edge Weight. This doesn’t have to be hard.
• Don’t overwhelm people.
• Keep posts at 40-80 characters or less.
• Post one to four times per week and never more twice per day.
• Optimize updates for Facebook.
  • Although using 3rd party tools can make it easier, avoid them when possible.
  • Tag other Pages and Events. When possible, use your personal profile to tag other people.
  • When posting links, choose a good picture.
  • Avoid hashtags, shortlinks and other evidence of cross-posting.

We’ll be posting a Part 3 all about the timing of posts soon. Stay tuned!

If you haven’t already looked at Facebook’s new Page Insights, look them over today. Do these studies back up what you’re seeing with your brand? Do they contradict? Let us know and be sure to Like the Big Sea Facebook Page!

What you see in your Facebook newsfeed isn’t magic; it’s controlled by a very important algorithm called EdgeRank. Facebook wants users to be engaged, so EdgeRank is a critical aspect of their business. The EdgeRank factors are:

• Affinity – How often you interact with others (be it visiting a friend’s profile or commenting on a Page’s picture).
• Edge Weight – The type of content it is. A few types are: photos, videos, status updates, place checkins, becoming friends with someone, Liking a Page, changing your profile picture, etc. Keep in mind, there are general rules, but everyone’s Edge Weight is different and Facebook has carte blanche to tweak things at will.
• Recency – The older something is, the less likely you are to see it.

Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts

• Posts made between 8 PM and 7 AM receive 20% more user engagement.
• On Wednesdays, fan engagement is 8% above average.
• Posting one to two times per day produces 40% higher user engagement.
• Posting one to four times per week produces 71% higher user engagement.
• Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement. Very concise posts – those between one and 40 characters – generate highest engagement. Only 5% of all retail brand wall posts are less than 40 characters in length, even though these receive 86% higher fan engagement.
• Ask questions to spark dialogue – “question” posts generate comment rates double that of “non-question” posts.
• Fill in the blank posts receive 9 times more comments than other posts.
• Offer fans “$ off” and coupons. Posts containing these offer-related keywords receive the highest engagement.
• “$ off” offers receive twice the engagement of “% off” offers.
• Avoid complicated wall posts. Status-only posts receive 94% higher than average engagement

Link to the Study by Buddy Media.

DOES USING A 3RD PARTY API TO Post TO FACEBOOK DECREASE ENGAGEMENT? YES!

Source: edgerankchecker.com

Using a 3rd party API to update your Facebook Page decreases your likelihood of engagement per fan (on average) by about 80%. A Breakdown:

• HootSuite – 69% reduction
• TweetDeck – 73% reduction
• Sendible – 75% reduction
• RSS Graffiti – 81% reduction
• Twitter – 83% reduction
• Publisher – 86% reduction
• twitterfeed – 90% reduction
• dlvr.it – 91% reduction
• Social RSS – 94% reduction
• Networked Blogs – 76% reduction

Probable Causes:

1. Facebook penalizes 3rd party API’s EdgeRank
2. Facebook collapses 3rd Party API updates
3. High chance of being scheduled or automated
4. Content is not optimized for Facebook

Link to the Study by EdgeRank Tracker.

What do you think? Are you rushing to unplug linked posts? Have you noticed anything or found any cool studies we missed? Let us know and be sure to Like the Big Sea Facebook Page!

Check out Writing Effective Facebook Posts Part 2!

There are so many places your business can be reviewed online – Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, TripAdvisor, LinkedIn – the list is long and growing. If you’re doing something right (or seriously wrong), you’re sure to have at least a few reviews out there.

People are more likely to post online reviews in extreme cases – either they’ve had a really great experience, or something went horribly wrong. A waitress was having a bad day; a hotel room smelled like smoke; a project didn’t flow the way it should have. Whatever the reason, now you’ve got a negative review out there and you can’t do anything about it.

Here are some tips to handling negative reviews so that you can turn them into positive feedback in the future.

1. Sign up for Google alerts. Now. Get alerts for you company name, your name, and if you’re brave or interested, your competitors. Start watching what’s published out there about you and your industry. You can’t address issues if you don’t know they’re happening.

2. Don’t respond in knee-jerk mode. If you happen upon a negative review, don’t respond immediately with snappy retorts. Let it settle in and find a good approach. Whatever you do, don’t tell future customers about your negative reviews and complain about their inaccuracy. Especially when you haven’t fixed the problem.

3. Look at each review as a chance to get it right. Reviews are invaluable feedback that you would never get by simply asking. Use that information to fix what’s wrong. Then, respond to negative reviews (some sites let you respond as the business owner directly to the reviews) with a detailed list of how you addressed the issue.

4. Ask for another chance. If you can identify the customer, see if he or she will give you the opportunity to resolve the issue offline, then ask them to update their review. You’ll find when you satisfy a previously unhappy customer you’ll be creating one of your strongest advocates.

5. Do nothing. We can’t always be perfect – and that’s ok. Sometimes attempts to fight back simply fuel the fire and can turn a small blip into a big problem. Just let it go – but be sure to get as many good reviews as possible to balance the opinions.

6. Get more good reviews. Encourage your customers to post reviews on the above-mentioned sites. I’ve seen tour groups give out a card at the end of the tour asking for TripAdvisor reviews; restaurants who ask for Yelp, Google or UrbanSpoon reviews after a customer finishes dining. Don’t be afraid to ask – many satisfied customers are happy to share their experience online.

7. Don’t sweat it! If the reviews are piling up, you have some work to do. Take them seriously. But if you’re finding one or two among a pile of happiness, then let it roll off your shoulders. Consider an appropriate response but don’t stew over it. Move forward and do the best you can to remedy the problems and get more good reviews.

8. Most importantly, PAY ATTENTION. Regularly check out your listings on the sites mentioned in this post and make sure you know what’s going on with your brand image; how people feel about you. As a small businesses owner, it’s your responsibility to use these bits of public information to build relationships, improve customer service and enhance your products.

Just how significant are bad reviews for the future of our businesses? They’re significant, but not for the reasons we immediately think. They make us aware of and provide us with an opportunity to fix genuine problems and turn opponents into staunch allies. Unjustly negative reviews are often exposed as petty and have little sway with intelligent consumers, and in the case of outright illegal reviews you generally have a remedial process to get them removed.

The number one rule when responding to all criticism, even the negative type, is to stay positive. Adding more negativity to the conversation by letting yourself be drawn into a fight with a customer or user will only reflect poorly on your business.  If you know you’re doing the right thing and doing it the best way you’re able, integrity always comes out on top.

Five reasons to skip Twitter:

1. You just don’t get it.

If you just don’t get the “point” of Twitter, you’re not alone. Some users hit the ground running, firing off dozens of tweets a day and amassing hundreds of followers. Others struggle with the structure of the site and the concept of sharing bits of information in 140 characters or less.

Give it a try and nose around for a while. If it’s simply not for you, your efforts will be forced. That’s a waste of your time — and people will be able to tell that your interactions are half-hearted.

2. You only want to promote your business.

Twitter is a social media networking website. Think about it as a room full of people milling around. You can overhear their conversations and introductions if you stand close enough. You might notice a group talking about something that interests you. You may gravitate toward them and enter the conversation.

No one is standing around with a bullhorn making announcements — so don’t be that guy. If you’re not interested in a natural give and take and a good balance between reading and promoting, skip Twitter.

3. You don’t have any free time.

While it’s possible to set up some automated services to update your Twitter account with blog updates or promotional tweets, you’re unlikely to see much benefit from Twitter usage unless you put some real human effort into it. You need to reply to others. You need to follow people with similar interests. If you’re a local business, you really need to follow locals.

These tasks probably won’t require much more than twenty minutes a day as you get started — but if you can’t keep up with that sort of consistent maintenance, wait until you have more time.

4. Your customers don’t use Twitter.

Are your customers likely to be on Twitter? Not sure? Ask some of your regular customers how they use the Internet. Consider their average ages and general level of education, but keep in mind that you don’t need to have a web or technology-related business to interact with your clients online.

If you can’t interact with customers, provide customer service or develop natural leads on Twitter, you probably have no reason to be there in a business capacity. (Try a personal account to test the waters if you want to get a better idea before putting your business out there.)

5. You have nothing to talk about.

Content is king — even on Twitter. Do you have anything to say? If not, you’ll constantly be scrambling for updates. You don’t have to be a professional writer to succeed on Twitter, but you do need to have pertinent things to share. The last thing you want to do is waste time stressing over what to Tweet about.

Upcoming sales, tips related to your line of business, events, and success stories make great Twitter updates. Discussing the local weather can only go so far, so make sure to have a general idea before you get started. It can be as simple as a bulleted list of possible topics. As conversations begin, the update process will become more natural.

Maria Mora offers friendly, down-to-earth social media consulting and editorial strategies. You can usually find her messing around on Twitter.