This week you may have read about Facebook Fan Pages trialing the new “Get Notifications” option on their Facebook Page. Inside Facebook reported at the end of October about the new notifications settings being tested on Fan Pages.
Background – Why Don’t all Fans see All Posts?
Because of the way Facebook EdgeRank works, in your Newsfeed you will only see things that Facebook thinks you want to see. FB basis this on your previous likes, comments and interaction with Pages in the past. If you’ve seen a post from a Page and not liked or commented (or even marked as Spam), the EdgeRank algorithm takes all this into account, which is why you may have missed certain posts from Pages you are connected to.
Similarly if you are a Page owner you may notice from your Insights that some posts attract more attention than others, say for example a post with a link is seen by 25 people with no interaction and yet a post with a question or statement is seen by 125 people with more likes and comments it is probable that Facebook shows the latter post to more of your fans because of the way the fans have reacted in the past to similar posts. This is one reason why only a percentage of fans see your posts in their Newsfeed.
There is a way to improve posts that don’t get seen as much using Facebook Advertising that I will cover over the coming weeks and I even have a special offer on this service coming very soon!
OK, How Do I Get Notifications from the Important Pages I Want to Hear From?
All you need to do (and try and remember to do this every time you like a new page you want to hear from) is hover of the “Like” button on the Fan Page and select “Get Notifications” until you see a tick next to it. That’s it – pretty simple, but effective!
How will this help the Small Business I’m following?
Well the jury is out – the theory is the more that want to “Get Notifications” will see them on their notification button in the top left hand of their Facebook Account, so it can be clicked on and result in more visits to the page.
Facebook is extremely competitive, much more so than a year ago, because of the sheer number of businesses battling it our for their fans attention!
Fact of the matter is, if the post isn’t that interesting or doesn’t provoke a reaction from that reader it’s not going to improve the “talking about this” number on a Facebook Page. The “talking about this” number is important as it is a guide for how many people are seeing the posts from that particular Page in their Newsfeed because of a recent interation, this number fluctuates daily.
In conclusion, although this is a great feature on the face of it and business owners are generally happy about this small change to notification settings, if you set “get notifications” for hundreds of pages it may actually irritate more than help in the long run!
TOP TIP!
Make sure you are getting notifications for pages you manage and/or own as you will know when people comment and like, or if a fellow page manager posts on the page.
Need more questions answered? Just contact me about your Facebook quandary 🙂
