4 Ways to Stand Out Better On Facebook's News Feed

Are you frustrated by the lack of engagement with your Facebook posts? In order to increase Facebook post engagement you need to learn how to stand out and rock the Facebook news feed. We've put together 4 tips that will help you utilize Facebook’s algorithm to your advantage, find and engage your audience, and analyze your activity for premium results. Let’s get started!

1. Post Engaging Images and Copy

Facebook is a hugely visual platform, we pretty much all know this. And as much as I hate to admit it, for personal use I’m more attracted to pictures of babies and weddings than I am to status updates about political views and what’s for dinner. This transfers to business use as well. Visual content drives engagement. In fact, just one month after the introduction of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content — photos and videos — saw a 65% increase in engagement (Simply Measured). I am much more attracted to a post of a local business that just installed their new awning and wants to show their customers than I would be if they just updated their status about it.

I think what businesses forget though, is that you can also include engaging copy and links to your website with these photos. Do you want to show off that new awning you just installed on your office? Go for it! But include a relevant link to either your services or  a blog about your company so that you can get these people to your site!  As long as the post content and attached link are relevant to the photo, you’ll be sure to attract visitors to your site.

Other considerations when it comes to the copy of your posts are hashtags and trending topics. Facebook will group trending topics together in news feeds if many people are posting on them.  Hashtags are also migrating over from platforms like Twitter and Instagram as a way to quickly find topics people are posting about. For instance, in the post below we utilized the trending topic of No Shave November and put a relevant hashtag with it.

2. Grab Attention First, Then Promote

Ever gone onto your high school sweetheart’s Facebook page and then all of a sudden you’re getting updates to your news feed about her son’s piano recital? Well, that’s because of Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm which looks at affinity, weight, and time decay. Basically, it looks at the 50 people you last interacted with or viewed their profile. Then, it includes those people in your news feed over the ones you haven’t viewed in a while.

You can use this tip to your businesses advantage! All you have to do is post something super interesting, whether it directly correlates to your business or is just something you think people will find interesting (tip: I hear most people enjoy pictures of cats).

Once you post that and you see people engaging, sharing, viewing, etc. you can then post something promotional that will take them back to your website. Why do this? Because if you post something first that everyone will be interested in and let them engage, then it’s more likely your next post will show up in more people’s news feeds. I call this organic advertising (it’s redundant, I know).

3. Promote and Target Posts

I called the previous tip organic advertising, but you can do some very easy, very targeted paid promoted posts in order to boost news feed presence. A promoted post shows up higher in the news feeds of those who like your business page and their connections to ensure that more people will see it. This simply increases your chance of reaching more people and getting more engagement.

You could also target this post to specific interests so as to reach people who are interested in things like inbound marketing, social media, etc.  This goes beyond just your friends and their connections, but to people who have interests similar to what the post is about.

This type of posting works similar to the organic advertising idea I laid out before, when people see and engage with a promoted post then you are more likely to show up in their news feed organically as well. This type of paid advertising can also help increase Likes and Followers on your businesses Facebook page as well. A bigger audience is always worth it!

4. Review Performance

The most effective way to rock the Facebook news feed is to know your audience, post content you think they want to see (whether it’s paid or organic), analyze what kind of posts are getting the most engagement and adjust your content strategy accordingly. The best way to do this is to look into your Facebook Analytics.

Facebook Analytics has recently gotten quite an update. It looks at metrics like page likes, post reach, engagement.

You can also look at any post or update you’ve put out and see the type of activity it’s gotten.

This is very helpful in deciphering a few things: how many users you’re actually reaching, the type of posts that bring activity, and the time of the post that most of your audience enjoys engaging.  Once you gain this insight, you can leverage this to your Facebook marketing advantage! If more people are engaging when you post about one topic over another then you now understand what content your audience likes. If people are engaging more when you post your content at night than during the day then you know your audience is on Facebook more at night.

Conclusion

Standing out on the Facebook newsfeed is all about giving your audience what they want to see. Facebook is normally what people do during their work breaks or after work hours so what they want to see isn’t always your content. But if you make it interesting and keep track of what content is bringing in the most engagement, then you can be the master of the Facebook news feed!

Key Takeaways

• Heavy on the visual content but make sure you’re giving them opportunities to be sent to your website
• Use Facebook’s algorithm to your advantage
• Don’t just sit back and let your audience come to you, go find your audience with promoted and targeted posts
• Always be testing, analyzing and adjusting what you’re publishing on Facebook

Laura Hogan is an account manager for OverGo Studio, an inbound marketing agency in Southport, NC. Laura worked for OverGo while she went to school at UNCW and then came on full-time. So she has been able to grow her knowledge of marketing along with the company's growth. You can follow her and her pitbull Piglet on Twitter @lalalaurahogan.