Fab You BIZ: If You Can’t Win With Facebook Learn To Play Their Game

I have a “dirty” topic of blogging I want to talk about today. It’s something that has been bothering me, (and a lot of other bloggers), for a while now. So I thought, why not talk about it here to hopefully help us lessen the issue, because there are ways we can. So here goes.

Social media in blogging has become a driving force for most of us bloggers. Of course, this does not mean social media is the ONLY source. Fab You Bliss has a huge readership of people who have either bookmarked us or read us through one of the many feed readers available. And given the way social media is moving, we couldn’t be more happy about the fans who come directly to us.

However, if you’re a blogger and you’re not using Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon and Instagram, you’re probably missing out on a huge amount of traffic that could be coming your way.

The social media “thing” many of us in the blogging community have been struggling with is Facebook.

Facebook is one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world. And while most of us use it everyday for business or pleasure, (or both), Facebook itself has been changing – most notably over the past year – so what was once one of our biggest traffic referral sources, (a wild animal we loved beyond belief), has now become a caged bird with clipped wings.

Facebook has become a “Pay-to-play” environment. No longer are us bloggers able to reach ALL of our fans, fans we worked hard to get. Nope, with the algorithm changes Facebook has made over the past couple of years, we are lucky if even 5% of our followers see our content. How sad is that? We worked hard to gain the followers we have, and we continue to. So only reaching a small percentage of them unless we pay, is quite frustrating.

It is a sad state of affairs. But it is what it is, right? It’s the way things are going, so don’t be surprised if other outlets start doing the same.

But this post is not meant to complain about it. Instead, I want to talk about what can be done about it and how all of us can get better results without having to pay.

The latest changes within Facebook have been put into place to encourage people to share and converse “within” Facebook. It makes sense, Facebook wants you to stay on their site as long as possible. So they’re rewarding bloggers whose posts get shared and re-shared by “showing” their posts to more of their followers. It’s a complicated puzzle, but what I’ve found in experimenting is the more interaction a post receives on Facebook, (especially within the first hour it’s posted), the more likely it will be seen by more followers.

How awesome is that? Easy and FREE!

This means that when even just a few fans “Like” and “Share” and “Comment” on posts on Facebook, more of your fans will see the hard-worked content you and others have put together.

So how can we make a difference with this?

Simple! If you’re a blogger:

* Encourage your fans to interact more on your Facebook business page
* Post the BEST content possible to get the interaction you’re looking for

And if you’re a photographer or vendor who has weddings or shoots featured here on Fab You Bliss or other blogs within the industry:

* Be sure to engage with the blog’s Facebook post as soon as possible. That means sharing, liking and commenting on it and encouraging others in your community to do the same. Doing so will help allow more of the blog’s fans to see the post, which obviously will benefit you in the long run.

So, long story short, if you can’t win with Facebook learn to play their game!

Thanks for stopping by!