articles | | Canadian Small Business Women

May 21 2016

Facebook News Feed: How does it work?

Have you ever wondered how Facebook’s news feed work? Or how Facebook decides what content to show in your news feed? In this blog we are going to tell you how the news feed works and how you can create more visibility for your brand

Facebook decides what to show you in your news feed based on other similar content that you browse.

For example if you spend most of your day reading articles about animals, watching videos about animals, then you will see more content about pets and animals on your news feed.

How do you get your content to show on your fans news feeds? You need to create content that engages your users, and keeps them around. The longer users spend on your content, the more likely they are to see your updates in their feed.

There are a few ways to do this. Don’t use deceptive headlines, this won’t win you any points with Facebook’s algorithm. Make sure you have great content. You want a catchy headline that will make people click on your link, video or instant article.

How much content is enough? Don’t make content for web and mobile too long. The majority of people have a very short attention span when interacting with online content, especially articles and videos. While the algorithm measures time on content, there is a maximum threshold.

Content Diversity

Due to feedback from users, Facebook plans to implement some diversity in it’s news feeds. Users have complained about seeing the same content, back to back, from the same publisher, pages or sources. Facebook learned that users want to see wide-ranging content from different publishers.

Diversity can be harder nut to crack, but there is a very simple way. Make sure you post your blog on multiple site, get friends pages to share it, if you have partners, ask them to share your info. The more places that your content lives, the more likely it will appear in people’s news feeds. I do however want to suggest caution, as having your content on too many sites can damage your google search rating. It’s all about finding the right balance.

The other thing you can do is to re-purpose old content, and share that to your page via other links like from your blog, your LinkedIn page, employees pages. You have more content to draw from and share than you realize.

Facebook wants to show you the stories that it thinks will matter most to you

This is an easy on to achieve, create stories that matter to your audience. Are you involved in the community? write a blog about it. Do you help out with charity drives? write a blog about it. Did an employee of yours win an award? write a blog about it. Creating stories is easy because there are so many around you if you just take the time to really connect with your customers and employees.

Shows you content based on the friends you have and pages you follow

I’m sure you’ve seen this in action. You follow a new business page, and BAM, their content starts to show up in your news feed. Pretty convenient right?

Well, here’s how you can start to take advantage of that for your business. You have all these fans, maybe thousands, that like your page and have shown interest in what you do or what you offer. Encourage your fans to share your content. The more that they share, the more your content will appear on their friends news feeds. Identify who your regulars are. Who is always commenting, sharing and engaged with your content? Give them a shout out, recommend that other people follow them.

You can also start following other businesses, recommend other businesses who you have had successful partnerships with in the past. All of this not only helps you gain more exposure to followers of these groups, but also helps to build your brand awareness and recognition.

Types of content users interact with

This one is pretty straight forward, if users tend to watch more videos on Facebook, then their feed will tend to include more video content. Same goes for text, photos and links.

To overcome this obstacle, be sure to have a wide variety of mediums for your content. Have a good mix of text, video, pictures and links.

Engagement can beat Recency

Lets talk about engagement first. If a post has a lot of engagement with your audience, it will be more likely to show up compared to something posted recently. For example, if someone posted content yesterday that got a lot of engagement and you decided to share that same content today, Facebook would prioritize the post with the highest engagement to show up on the news feed.

For recency, be sure you post everyday. If you take a few days off from posting anything, then you will be less likely to show up in news feeds because your audience also follows pages who may post more often and therefore will have a higher chance of showing up.

So make sure that you post often and that you are getting engagement on the content you are posting.

Users can control their news feed

While this is an option for all users, most people are unaware of this option. Users can hide posts from friends and pages, while still remaining friends and fans of those same pages. Users can also tell Facebook which pages they would like to see first in their news feed.

Make the assumption that most users don’t know about this option, then tell them how they can be sure to see your content first in their news feed. Take a screen shot of your page with the instructions of “how to see us first” Then pin it to the top of your page or make it a part of your cover photo.

Companies like Facebook and Google are constantly changing how their algorithms work, so it can be a full time job staying on top of the changes and understanding what they mean for your business. Keep up with the changes and adapt your content to meet those changes and you will see better results.

Teach Me Social owner Kelly Farrell has been helping empower Canadian Small Business owners through social media for over three years. Her team now offers services ranging from training sessions for small business owners and their teams, to full-service social media account management. Visit teachmesocial.ca to learn more about our service offerings or to contact us today for a no obligation consultation, including an audit of your existing social media channels.

Jul 11 2015

Public Relations 101: What is it and what can it do for your business

Whether you are an entrepreneur looking to break into your industry or you are an established business of any size, your success is largely dependent on your reputation. Many different types of people can have an effect on your reputation such as customers, suppliers, employees and journalists. Their opinions of your business – good or bad – will affect the opinions of others.

Public Relations (PR) is part of your marketing strategy that focuses on managing your reputation through effective communication of your organizational message. It is the art of building and maintaining positive relationships and brand awareness in the public eye (AKA your target audience).

Simply put, PR is your strategy for getting your message – your story – out to your audiences. It is all about engaging your target audience(s) by connecting with them in some way. It should be complementary to your overall marketing and outreach strategies.

6 Key Factors of PR

Media Relations: Building relationships with the media and other influencers with the goal of attaining editorial coverage (Not paid for). If you have ever read a story about one of your favourite brands, the latest celebrity gossip, or even a story about a politician, business owner, or prominent individual, chances are someone pitched that story angle to the media and they thought it was interesting enough to write about.
Special Events/Experiential: Designed for both public and media outreach, these events usually have brand experience and/or informational components.
Content Generation: Writing blogs and bylined articles both for your organization’s website as well as for other websites and publications is a great way to control your message.
Industry/Competitive audits: Audits (research) will determine the best positioning for your organizational message in terms of making it stand out from your competitors.
Crisis Strategies: As hard as you might try to maintain a positive image in the public eye, sometimes things go wrong. It could be a huge product recall, and it could be something as “small” as an internet troll leaving negative comments on your blogs. Having a crisis strategy in place before it happens is your best bet so you know exactly how to deal with it.
Social Media: This is where there is a definite crossover with the rest of your marketing strategy. You need to make sure the messaging you are putting out on your social media channels fits with the rest of your outreach. It’s a great way to promote your story. It’s also a great way to showcase content across different mediums.

Why Your Business Needs PR

Your business would not go anywhere without some sort of customer, end user, network, or community of fans, which is why you need PR. You need to be able to reach them with your message.

PR helps your business to:

Connect with your target audience both through direct channels and infuencer touchpoints (working through people, media, and celebrities who influence your target audience).
Package your brand story for maximum effectiveness. A good PR strategy will create a foundation for your business to build its outreach and growth strategy.
Get your brand and organizational story in the public eye on your own terms (ie. You have some control of the messaging that is out there).
Define its voice. Your business is so much more than a brand name and a website. It has character, values, and purpose.
Utilize a variety of outreach channels so you can tailor your strategy to your budget and your organizational culture.

Maintaining a strong presence on multiple channels while reaching your target audience is priceless when it comes to building a business. Most people think the cost of running a successful PR strategy will be too much, but there are ways to work within any budget. Your reputation and business success depend on it.

Candace Huntly is the Founder and Principal at SongBird Marketing Communications, an agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making it unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/email/Website

Oct 21 2014

Your Brand Values and Governance Model: Developing Your Content Strategy

Part 2 of a 6 part series on Content Strategy for Your Business

In the first post in this series, I outlined what a content strategy is and why it’s a critical part of your digital business model. Over the next 5 weeks of this series, we’ll go through a full content strategy, but where to start? Sometimes it’s best to start at the end.

Governance: Start Your Strategy at the End

When it comes to Content Strategy, A Governance model is perhaps the most important factor. Why? Because if you understand up front what it will take to create, measure and maintain your online business communications, you will be more realistic and strategic when you develop your content strategy. In this post I’ll outline what your governance model will include, and then go into some detail on the creation of the first piece of your content strategy and resulting governance model.

What do I need to Govern?

Online business communications are the basics on your website, which might include

Your Home page
An “About Us” page or section
A services Section and/or product pages
Your contact page
Campaign based landing pages

Depending on your business goals, it might expand to include content marketing such as

Email communications such as e-blasts or newsletters
Blogging or articles
Info graphics or tools

And depending on your customers and where they are in the sales funnel, it might include brand awareness tactics like

Social media: Twitter, Facebook, Linked IN, Instagram, and Pinterest…
Influencer marketing

Governance of your content strategy means managing these communications, and it is like running a second business, your digital business. It is part marketing, part sales, and part corporate communications. And like any business, you need a plan: that’s what Governance is.

Your Governance model brings together all of the pieces of your content strategy into a structured, executable plan of action. Putting a realistic and actionable governance model in place means being very clear about your brand values and goals, your customer needs, knowing which platforms your ideal customers are using, and which blend of content types will give your brand voice consistency and regularity, and then putting it all in a calendar.

A Governance Model Outline

Your governance model will be made up of:

1) A clear statement of your brand purpose. This can be in the form of a mission statement, or it can be in the form of a message map, elevator pitch, or Value proposition (also sometimes called a unique selling proposition or USP).

2) A customer avatar or persona that describes your ideal customer

3) A clear idea of the conversion funnel for your ideal customer and which content types, on which platforms are likely to reach them.

4) An editorial calendar outlining when and what you are going to create or curate and some handy tools to keep it all running smoothly.

These things need to be written down! Don’t keep it all in your head. I keep my governance model in front of me in the form of sticky notes and charts pinned to a large piece of foam core that serves as my content strategy whiteboard. Knowing that these are the building blocks of your content strategy governance model, you can sketch them out very high level, and over the next 5 weeks we’ll fill in the blanks, starting this week with Brand Values.

Your Brand Values: Let’s Clarify

What are your brand values, and what are your business goals? By getting this down very clearly you will have some good material for your About Us page and a guide that will help you with your future content, customer, and platform decisions. The problem with typical mission statements is that they are very high level and often include a lot of jargon. For this reason I prefer to create more tactical artefacts, such as a Message Map or Value proposition.

Build a Message Map

A message map is perhaps the most tactical artefact you can create. It is quick and relatively easy to put together and is a good guideline document if you need to write something quickly such as a product launch announcement, or if you need to give something to your employees so they know the talking points on a particular product, initiative, or your business generally. CEO’s or PR writers use message maps if they are preparing to do a media interview, for example, or write a press release.

Watch this video about message maps, or use this basic formula, starting with a Twitter-friendly headline. This means a short, maximum 140-character statement about your brand or product. Then, write down 3 key points about your brand or product, making sure they are short bullets. Finally, for each of those three points, come up with a few supporting facts, statistics, or stories that bring the point home.

Clarify Your Value Proposition

Creating a value proposition using this template from copyhackers will give you a little bit more range of options in terms of how you might talk about your brand as a whole. Copyhackers has an excellent suite of worksheets and tools for all aspects of content strategy and a great process for figuring out your value proposition, that has you think about your brand and your service(s) or product(s) by filling in this grid. In the left-most column, write down all of the statements you can come up with that describe the benefits or features of your brand, service(s) or product(s), then really ask yourself if that statement gets a “tick” in the boxes to the right. When you have a statement that ticks all the boxes, you have a great value proposition!

My favourite tool is taken from the book “Gamestorming” because it brings customer target into the mix, and it is visual and easy to fill in the blanks. Try to make a few of these until you find a combination that feels right.

Once you have a clear idea, or collection of ideas and statements on what you have to offer as a business, the next step is having a very clear picture of your customer: knowing what they want, and where they are going to find it.

Over the next 3 installations, we’ll cover

Your Customer: figuring out what your customers want, who they are, and where they are.
Social media strategy: we’ll answer the question: do I need a website AND do social media? (The answer is, yes!)
Editorial and Content types: we’ll look at creation vs curation and finding the right balance for your brand and your customers, and why you need a schedule. Regularity and consistency is key to building audience.

This sounds like a lot of work

I could spend all of my time on creating and maintaining content. But obviously then I wouldn’t be running my business. Every business owner has to be a sales and marketing pro these days, however, and much of that sales and marketing activity is contained within the governance model of your online content strategy. It’s important to find the right balance-or governance model-for your business.

For more resources and information on Content Strategy and to download a detailed description of what content strategy entails, go to analyticalengine.ca/resources or download a Content Strategy Info graphic at http://bit.ly/1qY9tYp.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant. With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business. Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca