Social Sharing: How to Inspire Fans to Share Your Stories

Do you use stories to market your business?

Are you wondering how you can get people to share your content?

To learn how to inspire your fans and followers to share your stories via social media, I interview Simon Mainwaring for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Simon Mainwaring, author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World. He’s a consultant who’s worked with brands like Nike and Motorola. Simon also hosts the upcoming We First Social Branding Seminar in West Hollywood in a few days.

Simon shares the importance of tapping into the power of your fans to share your story.

You’ll learn how you can create a story and the kind of content you need to use to succeed.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

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Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Social Sharing

Why is it important to tap the power of fans?

Simon states that the power of social media is not in the ability of a brand to sell directly to a customer; it’s more to inspire a customer who made a purchase to talk about your brand to others.

With traditional media, it was “one to many.” A television commercial would reach many people. Whereas with social media, it’s about “one to one to many.” Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, said, “One member of those thousand fans and those thousand fans will promote you to so many other people.”

Apple‘s marketing looks effortless, but they do very conscious things to build their rabid fan base.

They celebrate the customer through the priority they give to the user experience. There is no other brand out there that spends so much time and attention to make sure their customer experience is so well-captured in the product itself.

Apple really listens to their customers and the marketing is done in a very human way. The video below shows the campaign for the iPod, which was done in very simple language.

You’ll discover what else Apple does to tap into the human dynamics and how they have a raving fan base.

Not everybody has the brilliance of what Apple has built and Simon says there is a fundamental shift that every brand needs to make.

The shift is for companies to market themselves not as the celebrity of their customer community but rather as a celebrant. You have to stop talking about yourself. Insteadtalk about your customers. Now thanks to social media, there is real-time dialog between brands and consumers.

If you want to inspire your fans to promote your brand and build your business, you need to reframe your marketing as a celebration of your customer community. You’ll hear the questions you need to think about that get customers to share and what gives you the power of one to one to many. You can then use your marketing platform to celebrate your customers.

There are many entrepreneurs and big brands that transform their experience with social media. Brands have changed their positioning and it’s become a benefit to their customers.

Coca-Cola’s marketing used to be “The Real Thing.” Now they’ve changed it to “Open Happiness.” Pepsi was “The Joy of Pepsi,” and now it’s “Refresh Everything.”

Coca-Cola changed their positioning to benefit the customer.

You’ll hear how Sharpie celebrates their customers and what Intel did to make it all about their customers with the launch of the Museum of Me.

Listen to the show to find out how the direction of conversation has reversed between brand, company and customer.

What’s happening in the PR and advertising industry to bring about this shift?

Simon says that the main challenge is to keep pace with change, because whenever you come up with a strategy, it’s normally obsolete by the time you have it.

For many years, large brands thought they had to put a big monolog out there and talk at people.

You’ll find out how a lot of big brands broadcast confusingly and how that can impact the customer’s ability to talk about your brand meaningfully to others.

If you’re a small company or an entrepreneur, the greatest challenge is to give yourself time to think about your brand and your marketing.

The only way to get customers is to define who you are, know what you stand for and then communicate it in a way that’s meaningful and relevant to them.

Listen to the show to hear why an undefined brand is unshareable.

Why do people care so much about having the opportunity to be heard?

Simon talks about a couple of examples from the past few months.

When you watch Lady Gaga’s new video “Applause,” she’s literally saying “Look at me!” She lives for the applause. Her whole film clip is a series of selfies, with different portraits of herself with the message, I’m not like you. I don’t fit in.

The video is different portraits of Lady Gaga.

It’s a snapshot of the mindset that’s informing millennials and the younger generation.

You’ll hear an example of another celebrity who recently used a particular image, which was shared 300% more than any other image of theirs. There is a very strategic awareness now and the tools available drive new dynamics. They influence the way people behave in the real world.

Marketers need to reframe how they think about reaching their customers and recognize that their customer shares ownership of the brand.

Customers want to co-create the content and be a part of the conversation. If you allow them to do this, they will willingly and happily share your brand with others. You’ll learn about why you shouldn’t cross the line when you say you stand for something.

Customers will partner with you and build your business with you only if you market and conduct your business with integrity.

There is an innate need in most humans to be acknowledged for something. When you as the brand or company empower people and give your platform to them, not only do you benefit—you draw people to you who love you, evangelize for you and become sharers of that content.

The nature of Simon’s company, We First, is the counterpoint to “me first.” They exist to celebrate the collective.

The We First blog is about what other people are doing.

If you reach out and celebrate somebody else—a customer or an organization—they will like you. They will be predisposed to talk about you to other people and you will earn goodwill.

Listen to the show to find out what else you can do to create a reservoir of goodwill and how it can elevate your brand.

What are stories for a business and how should businesses go about creating them?

People make the mistake of looking externally for stories. Simon advises you to look inward.

What companies have done with viral videos and rapid success stories is to tap into a way to inspire their customer base. The customers then become brand evangeliststo help build the business.

You need to look internally and ask yourself these three questions:

1. Why did you start your company?
2. From a competitive point of view, what am I the only of?
3. When my company is at its best, doing whatever we do, what are we doing?

If you ask yourself these questions and lay out the answers, you’ll start to see a theme. One further question you need to ask yourself is: In your category, what human property or emotion do you want to own?

You’ll hear Simon relate this to laundry detergent products. Even though there are many varieties, they all have different messages. Each brand looks at the emotions involved in what they say to their prospective buyer that makes them want to own a piece of it.

Each laundry detergent has a different message. Image source: iStockphoto

Whether you are one person or have 100 employees, you need to look at your category and figure out what human property or emotion you want to own. Once you discover this, you can frame your messaging in a way that celebrates your customers. This makes you relevant and meaningful to them.

Simon breaks down the three steps with the laundry detergent and gives examples of how a detergent company can get people to share their story.

You’ll hear examples of how you can co-create content with your customers, which will inspire them to share it. You can then put your customers on a pedestal through your brand’s platform. It’s a great way to engage your community.

Listen to the show to learn how you can leverage the power of your community to launch a product.

What should businesses do to encourage sharing of stories?

Simon states that you have to be executional and tactical. It’s about how you ask people.

You’ll hear Simon give a great example of the how Johnny Cash fans were given the chance to recreate his last video frame by frame with drawings and paintings of the original footage. It was then reassembled and the final video was launched with the same footage, hand-created by fans.

This idea would have been shared far more than the original video.

You need to think about how you can ask people to share your story in a way that will make them the celebrity. Then you can ask them to share it.

Listen to the show to hear an example of a way to get people to post photographs after they have used your product.

What is the role of employees, if any, in helping a story get shared?

Simon believes that the most important piece of defining your brand is internal.

It’s how you communicate and what you stand for with your employees. No matter where your employees are—either out socially or on their social media channels—they are your word-of-mouth advertising. They should embody the company’s values and mission.

Simon suggests two things for your employees and you’ll hear examples for each.

1. Tell your employees (no matter how big your company is) what you stand for. Celebrate their engagement.
2. Give them a toolkit of different ways to get involved.

Virgin Atlantic‘s tagline is Flying in the Face of Ordinary. You’ll also hear what Richard Branson did that reflected their tagline in a way no one has ever seen and how his staff has also used it.

Simon states that there has never been a better time for entrepreneurs to take these relatively inexpensive tools and use strategy and tactics to rapidly excel in their business. You have to learn how to do this to enjoy the benefits. When you do it, you’ll be one of the people whom everyone else is talking about.

Listen to the show to find out what gives you permission to engage socially and be human for your company.

This Week’s Social Media Question

Richard Wilson, CEO of Social Media Systems Manager, asks, “When looking for your target audience, I understand you need to determine where they are and what demographic you’re looking at. When looking for your target audience, a lot of research I have done shows that all you have to do is ask them what social media networks they like hanging out on. If you don’t know where they are in the first place, how can you ask them what networks they like to hang out on?”

Social Media Systems Manager.

If you don’t have any customers you can ask yet, or you don’t feel you can ask them, which is probably the situation for a lot of businesses, then here is what I recommend.

You can reverse-engineer this, which means spy out the competition. Research who your competition is. If there is no direct competition, then expand your category slightly.

Visit their websites and look at what social networks they are focused on. Then go to these particular networks and see whom they’re following.

When you analyze the competition and see whom they focus on, you can go a long way and make some assumptions that there is probably a target audience out there. Look at a few and aggregate them.

You’ll hear how bloggers and podcasters are also great contacts.

These are very simple things and it doesn’t take a lot of work to get this information.

I hope this gives you a good start.

Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.

Visualization techniques – How to stand out

Visualization techniques are an important way for brands to make themselves stand out in the face of high competition. Audiences find beautifully designed and laid out images appealing, this draws them in and can be a quick way for brands to transmit information which can be absorbed by an audience quickly if it is presented in a visual manner. Businesses find that they can gather more fans or followers by using a greater number of images and photos on social media sites, showing that they are an effective marketing tool for many companies.

Images are a powerful tool for engaging with your audience – they are a memorable, shareable, they can break many language barriers, and can transfer new information to an audience. This post will consider how visualization techniques can be used on Facebook, Google Plus and on blogs in order to make your company to stand out.

Facebook:

Facebook itself has made significant changes to benefit brands and users through redesigning the news feed to improve how visual content is displayed. This is an important step in making sure that Facebook is a more visual source of information and can therefore draw in a greater audience for the companies who use it. Statistics have shown that people are twice more likely to ‘like’ photos on Facebook, compared to text updates and that there is a 37% increase in engagement when Facebook includes photographs in their posts.

Image www.danzarella.com

Brands who are marketing through Facebook can follow a few tips to make their page more visually stimulating. The cover photo is an important use of visual space, and will be one of the first things a potential customer would see when accessing a brand’s page. Make sure your brand has a visually stimulating cover photo, which makes use of the large space that is available and change the image from time to time to keep fans engaged and aware of latest updates in the company. Take a look at our past article on optimising the images on your business' social media pages to find out how to make the most of your cover photo. If you would like to showcase a number of images then it is possible to make a collage of important images in order to draw in the attention of the audience and feature a few aspects or products that the company produces. Furthermore, adding text to the image can be an effective and quick way of demonstrating the message the brand is trying to demonstrate.

Cover photos are not the only option for demonstrating the potential for visual images to be used in social media marketing – specific albums can be created for different products, and images of customers enjoying using the product can be used to create a more engaging and interactive site.

Google+:

Google+ is a social network that allows users and brands to share status updates, links, images and videos and can be a particularly useful social media network for marketing purposes. Google+ recognised the importance of visualization techniques and in May 2013 it changed the layout of its pages to be more similar to Pinterest - this has created a better visual presentation of images and videos. Google+ also offers a photo search filter, suggesting the importance of using images on their site and the value they can bring to a company advertising through the site. The layout of Google+ can be particularly useful for companies hoping to show promotional videos, for instance artists hoping to show their new music videos to a new audience.

As with Facebook, Google+ users should utilise the large cover photo space in order to visually advertise their brand as it can be used as an opportunity to draw the audience in when they first access the page, for instance this Rolling Stones advertisement for tickets on their cover image.

Blogs:

Visualization techniques are a great way of making your business’ blog stand out – interspersing eye-grabbing images and visually appealing content in your blog helps to break up the text and make it more readable.

Not only can the use of visual images draw the attention of the audience in the first place, but the images themselves can also help to add interesting information to the post. For instance, infographics are commonly used as a way to draw in the reader and demonstrate interesting pieces of information or facts in a visually appealing manner, helping to make them more memorable. It has been found that content containing compelling images attract 94% more total views than content without images. Why not make your blog more visual and attract a greater audience?

What do you think?

Is visualization a good way to market your brand? Do you think it helps make your social media page stand out?

The Twitter IPO: Some Initial Analysis

Twitter just tweeted that it has filed a confidential S-1, with the appropriate disclaimer. Here are a few reasons why this filing and IPO warrant close scrutiny.

• Twitter is the last of the Big Four to go public. In the social networking ecosystem, Twitter is seen as a must have in terms of a social strategy, and is the only major player left that is still up for grabs — YouTube (owned by Google), LinkedIn (IPO), and Facebook (IPO) are all spoken for. Other upstarts like Pinterest are just getting started so Twitter is going to be the talk of the town into 2014, which is the earliest the IPO can be expected. There will be a certain “last call” mentality to the Twitter IPO that wasn’t there for Facebook.
• Confidential filing gives Twitter control. Twitter took advantage of the JOBS Act pass last year, which allows firms with less than $1 billion in revenue to file an S-1 confidentially. This means that unlike Facebook, Twitter won’t be subjected to a microscopic dissection of every word of its filing. This is a good thing, because Twitter’s business model isn’t the easiest to explain. As Twitter begins the roadshow, they’ll be able to roll out their story to investors in a systematic, orderly way that enables them to tell their growth story to the world.
• Timing and Friends benefit Twitter. Twitter should be saying a big “Thank You” to Facebook for carving out the path before them. Facebook has spent the past year educating the market about social media advertising, doing much of the heavy lifting and laying out the red carpet for Twitter.
• Challenge: Twitter’s Advertising Model. The biggest challenge that Twitter has is that its main form of revenue comes from “sponsored tweets” which is a form of native advertising (see Altimeter’s just-published report on Native Advertising). The problem with these sponsored tweets is that they are not, at present, a standard ad format that can travel outside the Twitter platform. That makes ad buying — and scaling to media buyers — more difficult.
• Discipline to Stick to the Business. The tweet that Twitter posted one minute after the “filing” one shows everyone at the computers with the next, Now, back to work.” The company has been preparing for this day, and realize that it’s a long, long slog for the next approximately six months before the actual IPO. The team will need discipline to focus on the work, rather than pulling out spreadsheets to calculate their potential net worth. Not an easy thing to do!

These are still early days, and I anticipate that we’ll learn a lot more about Twitter’s business over the next few weeks and months. I, for one, am eager to not just see the numbers, but also to hear their story. Because as one of the four foundational platforms of the social space, they have the ability to shape the future as they envision it unfolding. And the vision that Twitter CEO Dick Costello and his team roll out is sure to be interesting.

Fall For Facebook Features

Can you believe it’s almost fall? Maybe it’s because it’s been a blistering 90-100 degrees every day here in San Diego, but it’s been quite hard for me to believe that fall is just around the corner. My boots are all eyeing me for attention, but all I can muster the enthusiasm to wear in this weather is sandals!

And much like this hot weather, my RSS feeds are burning up with all the new Facebook updates that have been announced recently. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the new features, here’s a review and some details on the latest Facebook rollouts.

Facebook Login Changes

Whenever you go to a new app on your mobile device, you are often prompted to login via Facebook (or another site) for a quicker login process. One of the major concerns that many users had was that using these login methods allowed the app to post or share on your timeline. However, with the new login features, Facebook must now ask you separately for permission to post or share on your timeline.You can even skip the option to post all together, while still gaining access to the app. Now you can use Facebook Login as a faster means to access app, rather than as a dumping ground of shares and content exchange.

Contests In Your Timeline

This news spread like wildfire across Facebook pages and other platforms. Facebook revoked the requirement that all contests be administered through a third-party app. While the information was exciting and people were drooling over it like any new shiny object, some caution must be advised. Yes, you can now run a contest directly on your page. No, you cannot collect any solid data from a page contest. If you just want to boost some engagement or gain some new fans with a simple “like” contest, a timeline contest will work well. However, if your goal is to grow your list or collect more information from participants, you’ll still want to use third-party apps to administer your contests and help gather the data.

Hashtags Are Activated

It was inevitable that hashtags would be implemented by Facebook. They’re here! You can use hashtags in any post on Facebook to increase searchability. A side note, though, recent discussion and testing has found that including hashtags in your posts may actually diminish initial reach. And while hashtags are activated on all desktop applications, they haven’t been fully rolled out to all mobile users. Along with the introduction of hashtags, Facebook is also testing out trending topics, much like you see on Twitter, for those mobile users who do have hashtag functionality.

New Ranking for News Feed

Facebook announced new changes to their News Feed ranking algorithm and promised more transparency in how the algorithm would work. There has been much talk and complaints about Edgerank and how it penalizes pages, essentially requiring us to purchase promoted posts to get our information into the news feeds of our fans. With the new algorithm, Facebook determines quality content based on a number of factors (including relevance, trustworthiness, shareable, interesting, etc.). Quality content will get priority reach and poor content (including memes or other attempts used to game the old Edgerank algorithm) will be penalized with reduced reach. The new format also includes story bumping, posts that are deemed valuable may get bumped back up to the top of a news feed if it hasn’t previously been seen. This is good news for those pages doing things the “right” way, as we will likely see increased reach and engagement.

Graph Search

While the talk of Graph Search has been going on for a while now, Facebook has now rolled it out to all English speaking users in the US. If Graph Search is new to you, it’s essentially a redesign of your top navigation bar and a new means to “search” both Facebook and the Internet. Graph Search allows you to find connections or pages based on simple, specific phrases. For example, you can now search for “people from my hometown” and Facebook will give you a list of all users (whose security settings allow appropriate display) who match this criteria. The benefit is that search results are custom to you and your queries. However, it is a new interface and takes some getting used to.

Embedded Posts

This was an exciting announcement for a lot of marketers. As of August, you can now embed Facebook posts directly into your blog or website. You can embed your most relevant Facebook posts directly into your website for enhanced visibility and engagement. Posts can include pictures, video and hashtags. And, most importantly, viewers can like and share the content or follow your page directly from the embedded post! Like I said, this is exciting for marketers. If you can include key Facebook content in your blog posts, you can drastically increase your post reach.

New Page Insights

Most page managers have complained about Facebook insights. The confusion behind the numbers and lack of relevant data often left us yearning for more. The new page insights, still in the roll out process, have fixed many pastissues for page managers. With multiple pages of insights and tabs full of detailed information, it is now possible to gather much more relevant data. Some of the best new features include knowing when your fans are on Facebook daily, detailed information about where new fans and likes came from, specific analysis of each individual post and its engagement, page visits, and post reach.

Phew! That’s a lot of new features! And if things keep at this pace, Facebook will roll out even more new features in the near future. The key is to determine how these new features will benefit you and your social media strategy. Take some time to review each of these features and experiment with implementing them into your strategy.

Everyone Owns Customer Experience, But It Needs a Leader

Can we please stop asking who owns the customer experience?

And, please, stop the knee-jerk response of “Everyone should own the customer experience.”

Everyone owning the customer experience is a wonderful thought. (And not to mention makes a nice, retweetable sound byte.) It conjures up images of helpful and empowered employees at every level. If a customer requires some additional help, the custodian will stop pushing the broom to step in and make the experience a special one.  Everyone will step in as needed, disregarding daily requirements and pay grades to interact directly with customers. The end of the rainbow includes legions of hyper-loyal customers who love a company because of the people involved.

Reality, however, paints a different picture.

Employees are expected to do much more with fewer resources. Executives rarely interact with actual customers. And many of these employees hate their jobs or feel entirely disengaged. Bonuses and raises are often tied to specific, acquisition-focused results. The rewards are all about gaining new customers or increasing profit. Increasing profit absolutely should be a goal, but at what cost for short-term gains?

Yes, everyone should own the customer experience.

Every employee should feel responsible for delivering their portion of a spectacular experience to each customer. But how can they if the leader is not leading?

Truly customer-centric cultures are not created by mandates or nice plaques on the walls, they are created by leaders. And it must start at the top. The CEO should be connecting the dots for everyone – customers, shareholders, employees, and executives. Someone should be advocating for the customer in every meeting, for every project and with every result.

The CEO should be hiring executives who can lead with this mission, too. Changing a culture that hasn’t been focused on customers is not an easy task. When people have been trained to worry about short-term results at the expense of long-term customers, it is often tied to fear. If someone is worried about losing a job, speaking up on behalf of customers is often a losing proposition. It’s up to leadership to change that.

People understand when they are cogs in the wheels of the corporate machinery.

They know they can serve a role without passion or engagement for a while until they find something else. If leaders talk a good game about “everyone owning the customer experience” but don’t support it with long-term visions and constant, repeated reinforcement through both words and actions, individuals within the company will focus on the short-term goals they know leadership cares about. And why should they do anything differently?

Leaders need to change the game by understanding the consequences of NOT focusing on the customers. If they can inspire each person within the company to do so, that’s step one. But words, actions and results are big steps, too.

Don’t fall for the words.

Yes, please, believe that everyone should own the customer experience. But look to the leaders to see if it’s all talk or more than that.

Sensei Debates: Everyone Owns Customer Experience, But It Needs a Leader.  Does a business need a “customer experience” executive to take charge? Or is this within the purview of an existing executive’s responsiblities? Share your thoughts in the comments below. 

5 Tips To Convert Your Mobile Visits To Customers

Converting mobile visitors to customers is critical to your bottom line and potentially to your search rankings.

It’s autumn and time to fall back on the best practices that convert more of your mobile visitors into paying clients. While many businesses choose to focus on increasing traffic, it may be easier, and more profitable, to focus on converting your current mobile visitors into customers. What is a conversion rate? For fans of baseball’s Fall Classic, it is a batting average for your website. It is the percentage of people who make a transaction vs. the number of total visitors.

It is essential that your mobile site be ready to convert these customers for two major reasons. First because it means a better bottom line, and secondly, it will not be long before search engines like Google deliver lower rankings for sites that are not mobile-capable. In a recent survey from Google, 61 percent of users stated that they immediately move on with their searches if they don’t find what they want quickly and easily. Google has to address these impatient mobile users somehow. Giving lower rankings to sites that are not mobile-capable is one of its options.

The good news is that there are things you can do now to help convert these mobile visitors to customers. At the same time you can help protect or improve your search rankings. Here are five tips to ensure you’re hitting the key elements of mobile marketing for conversion.

1. Make your site clean and easy to read. Don’t put too much information up front, but make sure your important info is there. Think like a mobile user and design your site for that mobile user. Make sure you include your location, phone number, and a “contact us” button. Have a brief description of what you do and what your unique selling proposition is. If you don’t know what your unique selling proposition is, create one.

2. Offer choices for payment options. You need to pull out all the stops here. With the holiday shopping season approaching, you don’t want to miss anyone with a debit card, credit card, check or PayPal account. Make sure logos are visible, clickable and easy to find.

3. Help your customers feel secure about your site. Make them aware that your site is secure. Put a short guarantee on the main page. If you are a member of the Better Business Bureau, put the logo up. Include any memberships like the Chamber of Commerce or any industry-related organizations you are a member of.

4. Be timely. Mobile users have no patience for a site that is out of date or simply serves as a catalog. Right now you should be promoting an “autumn of savings” or similar promotion. Make sure that when they see your page, they immediately know it is up-to-date.

5. Create a compelling call-to-action. A call-to-action asks a visitor to do something. It sounds basic but many websites rest in the leaves. They don’t ask for anything. Don’t make that mistake. Ask them to buy, ask them to take advantage of your limited time offer, or ask them to inquire about getting more information. If you don’t ask, you can’t receive.

Rake in the profits this autumn. Cooler temperatures can lead to hotter sales if you take advantage of these conversion tips for mobile users. Make sure your visitors don’t leave your site prematurely!

Facebook News Feed Updates: How Marketers Should Respond to Story Bump

Are you wondering how to respond to the Facebook news feed changes?

Have you figured out how Story Bump can help your content remain top of mind with Facebook fans?

If you want to understand how these Facebook changes will impact your marketing, this article is for you.

Keep reading to discover how to take advantage of Story Bump.
What is Story Bump?

Facebook announced that they’ve tweaked their algorithm known as EdgeRank to allow stories that are getting more engagement (more likes, comments and shares) to be bumped up in the news feed.

The change is called Story Bumping and has already rolled out to 99% of desktop users and is still being tweaked for mobile users. The Story Bump shows you posts you may not have seen when they were first published.

For example, say you log into Facebook and scroll through your news feed to view 50 posts. The post you miss at position 51 continues to get lots of likes, comments and shares. Four hours later, you check Facebook and that post is at the top of your news feed, even though it’s four hours old.


Stories can get bumped up higher depending on several factors.



The Story Bump is good news for Facebook marketers for several reasons. In tests done by Facebook, there was an 8% increase in likes, comments and shares on stories posted by pages.

The other good news Facebook revealed is they’re going to be more transparent about changes and post them on their Facebook for Business News area. Notice there’s a category tag for posts about the news feed, so bookmark this site.

Let’s dive into the basics of the Facebook news feed and learn more about how to take advantage of the Story Bump with these four tips.
#1: Not Everyone Sees Every Post in Their News Feed

Facebook states the average person has the potential to see over 1500 posts every day. Their job is to help you see the most interesting things.

They do this by watching your behavior and then showing you more of the things they think you want to see. Facebook has stated the things that affect their algorithm are:
How often you interact with the friend, page or public figure (like an actor or journalist) who posted
The number of likes, shares and comments a post receives from the world at large and from your friends in particular
How much you’ve interacted with this type of post in the past
Whether you and other people across Facebook are hiding or reporting a given post

To make sure you see posts from certain people or pages, you’ll need to create aFacebook Interest List. Just like on Twitter, people create lists to keep track of the people they find most interesting on Facebook.

You can also encourage your fans to create interest lists that include your page. They get notifications about your page by clicking on the Liked button under the right side of your cover photo and selecting Get Notifications. This is where you can add the page to interest lists.


Encourage your fans to create interest lists or get notifications from your page.

Facebook page posts also seem to have disappeared from the Facebook ticker. I’m not sure how many people interact with posts using the ticker and it’s going away with the updated news feed rolling out soon.
#2: Story Bumping Helps the Shelf Life of Your Posts

A recent study by Wisemetrics showed that it only takes 2 hours and 30 minutes for a post to get 75% of its total impressions and less than 2 hours to get 75% of its maximum reach. So you have a very short window of time to get engagement.

With Story Bumping, your story jumps back up in the news feed if it gets good engagement.


Without Story Bumping, your post gets 75% of its reach in less than 2 hours.
#3: Engagement Continues to Be Key

I’m sure by now everyone is tired of the “E word,” but it’s more important than ever. How do you increase your Facebook engagement? Be remarkable. Be interesting. Don’t be boring.

The great thing about the new Facebook Insights is they show you exactly which posts are the most engaging, so you can model those types of posts more often.

To get to the engagement rate on each post, go to Insights, select Posts and then choose Engagement Rate from the drop-down menu.


Look at the engagement rate on each post.

The best thing about this statistic is that it factors in how many people actually saw your post, so you get a true measure of engagement.


Watch your most interesting posts and analyze what worked.
#4: Facebook Page Post Ads Provide an Extra Boost

You can be very effective on Facebook without spending money by focusing on engagement, but you can go farther by spending a little money from time to time.

To take advantage of the Story Bump, advertise your individual posts so they get more engagement through the ad. This boosts the bump the post receives organically.

The Boost Post option has a very wide target if you select “People who like your page and their friends,” which may include a lot of people who have no interest in your Facebook page. If you select “People you choose through targeting” option, you can only target people by location, age, gender and language—not by keyword interests, which again may include a lot of people not interested in your Facebook page.


Do not use the Boost Post option for re-engaging your audience.

The better way to get more engagement on a post is to narrow your targeting by using the Facebook ads interface and selecting Promote Page Posts.


Select Promote Page Posts, then choose the post you want to promote in the drop-down menu.

Now in the Targeting section, you can choose to advertise your post to only your own fans or use the Precise Interests area to target the post to people who would be more inclined to like your page and interact with your post.


Choose to advertise to your own fans to re-engage your audience.

The Facebook ads interface also allows you to precisely control your budget and get more for your money. As with any money you spend on marketing, track your results and do your testing. To really go for more engagement, only advertise posts that are interesting and already getting some engagement organicallyso you know they interest others.

Your Turn

The Story Bump isn’t the answer to all of the frustration around appearing in the Facebook news feed, but it does help pages get seen more often.

Your best bet on Facebook or with any social site is to be a source of information that’s so valuable to your readers that they do whatever they can to seek you out.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on the new Story Bump? Have you noticed a difference in interaction on your page? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!