It’s natural to think that if you make a post on social media that your connected friends or followers will see it, but sadly you are mistaken. What do you mean? We are given a handy newsfeed right on the homepage that merges in posts from everyone we choose to friend or follow. Here comes the “yeah, but”… yeah, but we have limited time in our day, and that time is competed for whether you like it or not.
I’m going to use Facebook for my examples. When Facebook originally introduced paid advertisements, they were located out of the way on the right side of the page and were easy to ignore. At some point in time they moved the ads into the newsfeed itself. Have you noticed this? Every 4th post in the newsfeed is a paid post. What is shown in your newsfeed is determined behind the scenes based on a combination of what the algorithms think you would want to see and what businesses pay for you to see (if you fit the profile of their target audience). It’s a popularity contest that also encourages you to pay to be popular.
What can you do to reach the masses? It comes down to interaction. Simply making a post does not guarantee that anyone will see it. The post needs likes, comments, and shares. These interactions attribute to your post’s reach, which is how many unique users will see the post. These interactions give the post more credibility in the eyes of the algorithm (Do algorithms have eyes?). A user’s interactions are shared with their network of connections. If Bob likes a post from ABC Widgets, then that post may have a higher chance of showing up in his friend Jane’s newsfeed. Jane sees the post and shares it with her mom. Mom’s mahjong buddy comments on the post to ask for more info. The interaction counts grow, the reach grows, and thus new users who have never even heard of ABC Widgets have found a new company that they want to do business with.
Are your posts being seen? Let’s connect and continue this conversation about your company’s social media marketing strategy.
Meir is a web developer who has been writing code since 2000. He enjoys his family, movies, cooking, golf, and bowling.
