As a blogger, I am always tweaking my social media strategies. No matter the many unwelcome changes, Facebook is still an important social referrer to my site (it’s a close second after Twitter). But I have been wondering about a different Facebook strategy lately, a reverse strategy you might call it.
What I have now is the pretty standard Facebook set up: a personal profile for friends and family with some 400 ‘friends’. I also have a Facebook page for my blog, which has 301 followers.
Facebook Page
My Facebook page has little engagement. I’ve tried some stuff, like posting pictures, funny things, etc. It works and you can see the ‘views’ of that particular Facebook post go up, but it never stays or transfer to a generally higher engagement.
That of course has to do with Facebook’s algorithm, which decides what people find interesting and thus what will show up in their news feed. Little engagement means little interest, thus no show. On general, despite having 300+ likes, only 50-100 people actually see my post show up in their news feed, as you can see in this screenshot from my admin panel. The one exception (149 reach) was a post that got a lot of comments.
Facebook Profile
My personal profile has a lot more engagement. I post all kinds of stuff there: personal pics, links I find interesting, some funny things, etc. Despite having followers in different countries and with different language origins (mainly Dutch, English and German), it works very well.
General wisdom says this is how you do Facebook: Your personal profile stays personal and your page is professional. But what if you mix the two?
Facebook has created the option for ‘following’ people, meaning you get people’s updates in your news feed (again, depending on the algorithm) without befriending them. At the moment, I have seven followers. There’s also an option now (totally ripped off from Google+ of course) that let’s you decide who can see certain updates: friends, public or even custom tailored groups.
The Reverse Facebook Strategy
Here’s my idea for a reversed Facebook strategy:
What if I deleted my Page and asked those people to follow my personal profile instead?
What if I then tailored each post to either friends or public, so not everything personnel would be widely shared?
Here are some benefits I can see:
- It makes it way more personal than my page is, without having to post things twice. I really like this, because my blog tries to build relationships as well. I’m not in it for the page views or the money (seriously, what money?), but I love equipping and connecting with youth leaders worldwide.
- It’s a lot easier because I only have to post on one spot, not on two, even if I do have to make sure the privacy settings on each post are correct (and yes, I do realize that those settings are faulty and that nothing is ever private on Facebook – which is why I never post stuff people shouldn’t see).
- It’s more likely to get into people’s news feeds because the general engagement is higher. In all likelihood, the engagement on more personal posts (you wouldn’t believe how many ‘likes’ I get from posting a cute picture from my very cute son!) would positively affect the more professional posts, for instance links to my blog.
I am really curious if this reverse Facebook strategy would work. Do you know people, bloggers, businesses that use this strategy? Do you think it would work?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
Markus Eichler says
Hi Rachel, I have been mixing those two since the beginning since I am
Markus Eichler
and I am a
Youth Pastor
Two sides, but the same person.
I find it very interesting to discover who reads and comments even on posts that are not intending directly to them.
So, courage! Mix the 2!
Markus
Chris Ridgeway says
Couple things to note that you lose if you abandon the Page and stick with the personal profile.
One is the follower/friend limit. You can have only up to 5,000 max on a personal profile. Maybe not a big issue now, but you could find yourself having to shift back to the Page if things get popular.
The second is the data and analytics. Remember that the views chart you show above isn’t available for personal pages! Now that I run several, I keep jumping back to my personal profile to check details on posts, only to remember that only Pages have those features.
Rachel Blom says
That’s an interesting question you raise. I know there’s a limit on friends, but there’s not one on followers, right? At least, I couldn’t find if there was one. So if you just get people to follow you and not friend them, that limit wouldn’t be an issue.
The analytics issue is a good one. Then again, if your focus is relationships, how important are these analytics? But you’re right, you wouldn’t know anything about your reach and things like that.
Heather Bravine Natterstad says
You should check out Gunnar Simonsen (author and speaker on social media) and Robert Caruso (owner of Bundlepost and also a social media guru) – this is exactly what they have been trying to teach for a while now! It makes sense. Look them up – they have great articles I think you’ll enjoy!
Rachel Blom says
Thanks for the tips Heather, I’ll be sure to check them out. Very interested to see what these guys have to say about it…at least glad to know I’m not the only one who’s thinking along these lines!