increasing visibility on facebook & using it to capture useful data

There is a lot of murmurs in the indie community about Facebook reducing the amount of people who see your posts. I personally love my little community of monster lovers that gather on my page for my shop, Lu & Ed but I am not altogether too worried about Facebook's changes.

The amount of posts inactive people who like your page don't see doesn't worry me because I engage my community. The more people who interact with posts on your fan page, the more it will appear in the news feed of people who have liked your page. The Facebook algorithm is really complex, but the brute of it is that simple - if you are creating great content that people are responding to, it will be shown to more people. And not only do I engage my community on Facebook, but I listen to them and convert their responses into useful data to make my business even better.

Using this method of creating community-building conversations, I doubly benefit because I increase the amount of people seeing posts from my shop's Facebook page and I am able to capture data to convert into graphs that help me make better products. How do I do it?

I post a question on my Facebook page in the morning, between 8-9 (my personal peak time to post). A simple question that requires one word or one sentence answers, that almost anyone can answer. You can see an example question here.

Then I create a Google doc & a color graph. I make columns for all the answers (for instance, this question I will make two rows, boy and girls & ages unknown - 0-18). I will use my graph to determine my audience – if I have a staggering amount of girls vs boys, I would know I should incorporate more girly colors and prints into Mon-stors, for instance. Or if I have a large amount of followers who have babies/toddlers, I could try to reintroduce my monster face lovey blankets to generate more interest from that crowd, or tweak my marketing a bit more to show more Mon-stors being used for storage in nurseries.

Since the question is so easy to answer, it gets a lot of replies – the more replies the more reach. In 24 hours the post reached 1230 people (About 62% of my audience), received 77 comments and my fan page received 6 new "likes". The number of your reach continues to tick up as the post appears in people’s newsfeeds as their friends comment on it.

When I post content like this, I tend to get 5-15 new followers and my reach gets a boost that lasts about a week – so I try to publish data capturing content like this once a week or every other week.

Examples of other content I have posted to capture data and encourage conversation in my Facebook community:

What is your favorite color, what is your LEAST favorite color, what is your kids favorite color, their least favorite color (all broken up over several months) – then I turn all the replies into a graph. I now know that blue, green and pink are the most popular and best selling colors for my products, while brown, black & yellow are my least popular.

Where are you from – this was my MOST popular post ever, reaching over 1700 people when my fan page only had about 1450 fans, and resulting in almost 70 comments. I collected this data with the intent to book craft shows in bigger cities where I had the most concentrated audience, but haven’t yet used it.

And miscellaneous monster related posts, like what is your favorite number of eyes, favorite color combos (pink and black was a big winner, followed by purple and yellow), what do you use Mon-stors for (I used this data to determine new ways to market Mon-stors in ways people hadn’t thought of yet to show how versatile they are).

Super easy, right? Obviously, when you first start publishing this type of content you won't get very many responses, because it takes time to build engagement. Be patient and just continue publishing great content and conversing with your community on Facebook! Reach out in your communities and engage with other maker's page posts - most likely they will reciprocate and become one of your brand's biggest supporters, sharing, liking and commenting on your content!

The best part, is like I said above, you doubly benefit from this activity on Facebook because you can collect valuable data from your engaged audience, at the same time as boosting your reach and widening your engaged audience for a short period of time. The next best part, is it’s free!

What have you found to help your posts reach more people on Facebook - without paying for an ad?

new facebook promotion rules

Did you know Facebook recently changed their strict rules regarding promotions and giveaways on Facebook? 

Previously, all giveaways and promotions ran through Facebook fan pages had to be done using a third party app like Rafflecopter. The new rules state that you can:

Collect entries by having users post on the Page or comment/like a Page post

Collect entries by having users message the Page

Utilize likes as a voting mechanism

However, businesses can not require people to tag themselves or friends in the photos to be entered to win. 

What does this mean for you? 

It means that it will be easier for your giveaways & promotions to go viral! Whenever someone comments or "likes" a post on a Facebook fan page, it shows up in that right hand ticker, and all of their friends see it. Meaning more eyes on your content, more traffic to your page and more exposure for your handmade business! Hoorah! 

Do you run giveaways through Facebook? What method do you usually use for collecting entries? Likes? Comments? Do you use the giveaway widget? 

#hashtags - there's some we can do without

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ten facebook statuses to get people talking

Engagement is key.

I bet you hear that a lot, as a handmade business owner. But what IS engagement? 

Simply put: Engagement is building connections through conversation. Garnering interest in your social media outlets and increasing your knowledge of your audience. The more conversations you have, the more people who will know about you, your brand, and your products, and the more you will know about those who like your brand. Knowledge is power, especially when your business is involved!  

On Facebook, they have an algorithm that determines what content is shown, so not all of your fans see your posts - just the ones who engage with you often. Their likes and comments are their way of telling Facebook "Hey, I like this page! I want to see more of it in my feed!" So your goal, as a page manager, is to get more people commenting on your posts. 

So, friends, I've put together ten tried and true Facebook statuses that get people talking! Try these out on your page, and be sure to reply and interact with those that comment on your status! Because really, Engagement is basically just a conversation, between you and your audience. Several of these status can also help your business grow as you learn more about your audience! 

1. What's for breakfast/lunch/dinner? - People love food, people love talking about food. You can use this status to learn more about what type of foods your fans like, especially if you have a blog and post recipes to it occasionally. 

2. What's your favorite color/What is your least favorite color? - Turn the replies into a graph, and utilize this information for future color trends in your products. 

3. How's the weather? - So simple, but such a great conversation starter! 

4. How do you take your coffee?

5. What's in your cup right now? 

6. What time do you usually wake up/go to bed? - These two questions can be a great way to find out when your audience is active so you can time your posts when most of your fans are awake!

7. Where are you from? - Find out where your customers are - if you have a concentrated group of fans in one location, maybe consider booking a craft show in that region! (I did this one on a whim last night and it was so fantastic to see how widespread my audience is! So amazing!)

Snapshot from this recent status on my monster page! (Lu & Ed) Comments whited out.
More people saw this status than fans on my page, with no promotion. 1446 fans at time of posting, 1519 saw this!

8. Guess what color I'm working with? - Always a fun status to post, and you can offer a coupon to the people who guess correctly to create follow-through traffic to your shop! 

9. What are you up to today? - find out what your fans like do to, talk to them about their interests, hobbies and activities! People love to feel important and valued. You may just find you have a lot in common with your fans, and these discussions can birth friendships. ♥

10. If you could travel anywhere in the world... where would it be? Always a fun topic, and you can graph the answers and tie inspirations from popular locations into your designs - like Parisian inspired cards or Hawaiian inspired fabrics for your summer line of dresses!  

Have some suggestions for statuses that amp engagement on Facebook? Share with the class in the comments! 

"I only liked your facebook page for selfish reasons"

First, I want to say I know that everyone at some point in their business has probably done this. But that needs to change. This is a really poor business practice, and there is no return on it, and we all need to practice better ways to build lasting connections.

Now, you're probably curious what I'm talking about, so here's an example: Someone likes your business fan page on Facbeook. They leave a comment that says something like "New fan from *name of page*, please return the like".

Sad truth, is they aren't really a fan, though. It appears that they only liked your page solely so you would return the favor.