Back in January, I set a facebook goal. I had 20,000 facebook followers, and I wanted to double that –and more! I wanted to get 50,000 facebook followers by December. “This is pretty impossible,” I thought. “I’m really reaching for the stars here.”
I decided to focus my efforts on facebook more than usual. I am not a good multitasker. You can ask my husband! So I put aside some other tasks, and I kicked it up a notch to see if I could make anything of my facebook page.
Well, as much as I could of course. I have three children and homeschool our five-year-old and seven-year-old. That is a full-time job in itself!
This post contains affiliate links.
One thing I am really good at though it getting lost in facebook. I genuinely love facebook. It’s an introvert’s paradise. And I take notes along the way.
My Aha Moment
I started noticing trends while talking with other blogger friends. There are people rocking their facebook pages that we would never expect: people who only promote their own content, people who only make videos, people who mostly share memes, and even people who share mostly sponsored content.
This gave me hope! Facebook isn’t looking for “x,y, and z” I decided. So I began experimenting.
By June – a full 6 months earlier than my original goal – I hit my crazy 50,000 goal!
If you take a look at this screenshot from my insights, you can see the momentum I’ve been gaining and how quickly it can snowball.
What does Facebook really like?
Now we all know that the bottom line is that facebook rewards people with great content. The tricky part is how to get on “the good list” while you are sharing fantastic content so that it actually increases your numbers.
Some of the posts I share now are the same posts I shared a year ago, and they were total duds back then but well-loved now. There’s a piece of hope for you!
So how did I do it? Part of it definitely has to do with luck! I won’t deny that. Only facebook holds the cards, so I cannot tell you why their algorithm and my page get along so well. But I do know that I have heard lots of people give advice on how to grow a facebook page, and I did the opposite!
So here are 7 ways I broke the rules from facebook experts and grew my facebook page. Then I’ll share some of my best nuggets of wisdom too.
1. I post less often and still get fireworks
I have spent a few hours watching videos and listening to podcasts about how to grow facebook. A lot of these experts are saying that they post every hour. Sometimes more.
One time I tried to post 10 times in one day, and I hit burnout that very day. My page was under 10,000 then.
I think that facebook looks closely at your reach, and some people have used this as the main force behind growing. They post every hour, every half hour, or 15 times a day.
I told myself from the beginning that I would not sell my soul to facebook.
I post six to seven times a day. Sometimes four, sometimes eight but generally six or seven. That is what is manageable for me. I like to chat with my readers on my page and monitor my page closely, and there is no way I could do that with tons of posts going out.
Take a look at this screenshot of an average week for me around the pages I watch. My numbers are at the bottom, and these are the six pages that are higher than me that I watch. In case you are curious, I watch 30 pages altogether.
You will notice that I am not posting nearly as often as some of them, yet I am still getting a higher reach. Even though some of those pages are 2X-3X bigger than me.
It’s important to figure out what is manageable for you! Facebook should not be all-consuming. If it is starting to feel like a burden or overwhelming, prioritize it to make it manageable!
2. I don’t share a lot of videos and memes
Videos and memes are great, and some pages are exploding by using them. If you love to create content, I think this would be the perfect fit for you!
I enjoy reading and seeing memes and videos, but I am not putting it at the top of my list to make these. I tried two videos, but I decided that’s not my strength.
I share videos that I absolutely love, but I don’t hunt around for them. It takes a lot of time to find those videos that are diamonds in the rough, and I’m not super good at finding amazing videos. Some of my friends are pros at that!
Memes are great because I think they are like a brain break for adults. We get so much information from facebook that sometimes it can be overload. Reading a funny meme is sometimes just what we need.
However, I don’t share them a lot because it is hard to track down an original meme! I love sharing memes, but I only do so if the meme is on the creator’s facebook page because I want them to get the growth from it. Even if it means I don’t share nearly as many as I would like to.
3. I avoid click-bait posts
One of the worst parts of going to facebook is scrolling through my feed when I only have a few minutes, clicking on something I think sounds great, and wasting three minutes reading a stupid post. I hate that! I literally wish I could take my time back after that happens.
I don’t ever want someone to feel that way after being on my page. I’ll post controversy to a degree, but click- bait – no way!
The majority of my time working on facebook is finding posts with awesome titles and content. Oh and great affiliate links. More on that later!
There are titles that are “sticky” as my friend Kelly refers to it! Titles that stand out from the rest of your feed and actually are amazing posts. These sticky titles bring readers into a great post that you want to pin, bookmark, or share. That is the content I am looking for!
How you can find those types of posts? First of all, you have to know what you are looking for! Do you read a post that leaves you feeling like you gained value from reading through it? Perhaps you read a parenting post with a strategy that you can’t wait to try with your children as soon as they wake up from nap time.
Does it make you feel like you could have written it because you can relate to the writer on so many levels. In fact, lots of posts that I share happen to be the topic I talk to good friends with over coffee.
These posts take time to find and spot, but you can become really good at finding them and writing those amazing titles. I took Kelly’s free Sticking Blogging Course, and it rocked my world.
I am always on the hunt now for the BEST posts!
4. I take breaks from my Facebook page
I used to have all of my posts lined up and I was certain that anytime I wasn’t following my schedule, I was being penalized with less reach. I was convinced of this facebook conspiracy – until I saw a friend completely abandon facebook for a year then pick it back up!
Did you know you could actually do that? I was shocked too!
Now if you take a break from facebook, they do notice. And I also think they notice that I check my insights 10 times a day.
Since I check my facebook page so often, I could easily get burnt out! Who am I kidding? I do get burnt out!
So I take breaks. And of course life happens. I have three children, a husband, and I do try to work on my blog. Those all need lots of attention each day.
I used to take a break and completely walk away from facebook. Now I’m a little more strategic.
When I want to recharge and refresh myself and live in the real world, I put things on autopilot! I schedule out my posts, but I don’t check the comments and insights until my break is over. And I am lucky enough to have a sweet friend who keeps an eye on my page for me too!
Let me tell you about this autopilot feature. It’s was a complete game changer for me!
5. I use a scheduler
And it’s not just the facebook scheduler. That one works, but it is not my favorite way to go.
The only way I can stay organized enough to keep finding new and great content is to have a library of saved posts — which the facebook scheduler just doesn’t do! Some people can make this work with a secret board on Pinterest. That was decent for me, but when I started using my favorite scheduler, life totally changed!
I don’t use Edgar. I have used it, and I think it was fantastic. It loops content, has a beautiful and easy to read calendar, and has that library of content that I so heavily depend on. But the loading time felt like forever. And the cost! It was $49 a month when I looked into it, and it’s about to JUMP. No way. They just sound greedy to me.
I pay $100 for my scheduler for a year! It’s a little over $8 a month. It’s not as fancy as Edgar. No looping and no stats. But I’ve used it for a year now, and I am not even slightly tempted to switch away from it. I’ve made a successful system with it, and they have features that are good enough. And for $100 a year, good enough sounds just right for me!
Here is a post all about how I use Cinchshare to streamline my productivity. I share all of my best secrets in it as well as four main ways that it has made Facebook so much easier! I actually had Cinchshare for three months and almost never used it before I realized how to make it work really well.
My post will help you hit the ground running! For starters, add facebook posts and make sure to categorize them! I categorize by the genre of the post, such as parenting, fine motor activities, fall activities, teacher tips, etc. But you could categorize by times. So all of the posts that you want to go out at 6:30 a.m. could be categorized under that.
6. I am spontaneous on Facebook
Sometimes I delete a post. I definitely go in and edit a post if I feel that I worded something poorly…or if it’s a great post that isn’t getting much traction. I post live from time to time (not to be mistaken for Facebook Live – I only do that in groups at the moment).
Links, posts, photos and links, photos (my own of course), videos, and memes — I use them all. There’s no formula. I used to try to make a formula, and it didn’t work. It just became frustrating!
Anytime my reach was tiny, I would blame myself. “No! I should have posted a photo. I did it all wrong.”
You can’t beat yourself up over this! Chances are that you have great content picked out already! With growth you will see what I mean!
Overall, I really love checking in on facebook, and I think part of that is because I don’t set myself up for failure. I don’t have quotas to meet for myself. Facebook works in ebbs and flows, and I know that even the most popular posts can have a bad week.
7. I use affiliate links every day.
I know that most people have the opposite experience, but my facebook page is my best platform for sharing affiliate links. It always beats out my newsletter by a landslide. Now, I definitely need to work on my newsletter, but that’s a totally different topic.
I love using affiliate links for really great products on facebook! I feature Amazon products, e-books from friends, high-quality products from fellow bloggers, and anything that I think is worthwhile. Sometimes my affiliate links are my top posts for the week!
Each time I share anything that I may earn a commission from, I always disclose. And lots of the affiliate links I share are even for FREE products! So essentially, if a reader grabs something for free but purchases later, I’ll get a commission on that.
If you’ve ever skipped out on affiliate links because you were afraid of facebook penalizing you, then now you know. You can use them and still grow!
So how do you succeed?
I hope you are noticing the exciting hope that was my “Aha moment.” You don’t have to follow anyone else’s trends to grow a facebook page! We don’t all have to learn video making software or create collages of viral posts. You can do that if that is what you want to do though!
My specialty is content curation. I love finding great content, but I don’t even make sure that every post is dynamite. I just genuinely like what I share and try to put up two really great posts a day. And you don’t have to do that either.
Do what you really enjoy and gets you excited to share with others. And realize that sometimes those posts will completely bomb, but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good share.
A Crucial Part of My Growth
So I was already sharing great content, but then I decided to use my insights to give me some more clues to help me grow. This is why I check my insights ten times a day. That’s probably overkill. I am a bit of a data geek though.
It’s not enough to get a post shared from a huge page. It’s not enough to have a tribe of people sharing your content daily. It’s not enough to be an admin on someone else’s facebook page. It’s not enough to get your page on a follow thread. It’s not even enough to join a facebook sharing group and post in it regularly. Those are really just drops in the bucket. And they will add up! But if you want the flood, you need more!
Mark Zuckerburg is a genius, and I imagine that he has employed some of the most brilliant people around to make his algorithm. But even though it’s a secret, our own insights are completely available to us. They are your window to what works and what doesn’t work for your own page.
Make a System
The bottom line is that you need your own readers to share your content! Actually, it doesn’t have to be your content. Just content from your page!
So find the best post on Huffington Post that relates to you and your readers. Scour Scary Mommy for those highly shared posts that you think are a good fit. Ask your friends which of their posts do really well on facebook. Then, wait and see what posts get shared from your page.
If you are a page under 10,000 and you get 50 shares, that is huge! Consider it your jackpot and add that to your content library and share it again in a month or two or three. Keep track of all of those posts that your followers love, and if they are evergreen, you can share them a few times a year.
Since I blog about kid activities, I also keep track of seasonal content. Some posts always do well around back to school, around Christmas and other holidays, and in the summers. I try not to saturate my page with seasonal content since I have readers from all over the world, but I do share those posts on a regular basis.
Some people have great success with new content even, so again, don’t put yourself in a box here! Experiment, experiment, experiment, and keep track.
If you’ve been sick and tired of facebook, I get it! It can be a lot of work for little return. Each year I learn more and more about how to connect with my readers and how to share with value. I don’t think this process will happen overnight, but I think that facebook can be a worthwhile platform. If you have given up on Facebook, I hope my story gives you some hope!
Now, I need to learn to make a stellar newsletter!