In the blogging world I live in, I have a pretty good understanding of traditional SEO. In researching my Google Analytics I noticed that my readers referred from Facebook stayed on my blog an average of 700% longer than an organic Google search. This led me to discover the new buzz word of “News Feed Optimization” also known as N.F.O or Facebook SEO is the practice of optimizing your updates so that you appear in the top news feeds of your fans.
There are 2 different types of Facebook feeds, top news and live news. The live feed is a real-time stream of posts that populate as they occur. Top new is Facebooks default setting. On average only 10% of users change their news feed settings to return to the most recent news. However, the news feed is a bit more complicated. Facebook determines what should go in your top news feed based on your previous behaviors, and not everything makes the cut. Facebook calls this EdgeRank.
5 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Optimization:
- Create posts that appeal to different kinds of connections. If you see the same people commenting and liking a specific type of post like photos, create different kinds of posts like questions or polls to elicit a response from other connections.
- Create posts that will generate feedback from your followers. Entertain, educate/enlighten, make invitations, say “thank you”, ask questions, etc. View every post opportunity as a method for garnering important insights and learning more about your followers.
- Post often but not too often. Each post loses its clout quickly. You should post at least every 3-12 hours. Depending on your audience.
- Always post directly from the Facebook platform. Facebook tends to frown upon auto content aggregators. Sorry to all you Hootsuite and Tweet Deck lovers!
- Less is more. Facebook statistics show that keeping posts to 80 characters or less are 4X more likely to receive a like, comment or share.
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