I was reading a post over on Digital Music News bitching about Facebook making it hard to reach your fans.
I would change the headline to “Facebook is making it harder for people with crappy content to reach fans.”
Facebook values its customers (i.e. every person who hangs out on Facebook). Without them they are nothing. If you’re content is creating a bad experience for their customers – and they can tell via their algorithm (look it up EdgeRank) or worse if there are complaining – you are going to get penalized by them not showing your posts or ads.
Its no different then you playing in a club. If you are not drawing a crowd, not entertaining the crowd or worse, pissing off the crowd, the club owner isn’t inviting you back.
It would also be like complaining that the radio station isn't playing every song that gets sent to them. They do not have airtime for everyone, only the best.
Solution, create content that people like, comment, share and click on.
I don’t know if it’s quite that simple, Corey. If you’re starting out with a small audience and looking to build it, how do you get those initial likes and comments when hardly anyone is actually seeing your posts?
Thanks for the comment Catherine,
I didn’t say it was simple. Very few things in the music business are when you are just starting out.
That said, off the top of my head, here are a few ideas to build up some Likes. 1) Drive traffic to your Facebook page from other sources like your email list and website. For instance, after someone opts in from your site or a show list, present a link to “Like Us on Facebook.” (that’s ones pretty passive after you set it up). 2) Go around and get involved in conversations on Facebook pages related to topics or similar artists your ideal fan hangs out on. Comment as your page and you should get some curious people clicking over to your page. 3) Ask friends and fans to help out and to share. And while you are doing all that, be consistently active.
Good point, I didn’t like it at first, but the algorithm makes my personal feed more interesting/appealing to me, and I have learned what types of posts generate the most interest. Here is an example of a post that gets ignored: ‘Hey everyone we are playing at the (club name) here tonight, hope you can come’, always fails! lol