I have always said I would never use Facebook to promote my blog. It was the one network I wanted to keep for personal use only. Of course I gave in and set up a Facebook page.
I’ve had my page about a month now, and it seems all I have learned in that time is what not to do.
The main thing I have learned is not to expect Facebook to bring traffic to your blog unless you already have thousands of people liking every post you make or you are willing to spend money.
Remember the days when if someone liked a page they were shown the posts? Not any more it seems.
I don’t begrudge spending money on my blog at all, but I have been thinking about this and I’m wondering if that money wouldn’t be better spent on something else.
Also, if I’m honest, it’s a bit of a pride (petty?) thing – if I am going to give someone money to promote something, I kind of want to give it to someone who promotes me anyway and doesn’t hold me to ransom.
It’s another of those things I say already knowing I’ll cave in and do it.
Anyway, that’s enough moaning. Here are some practical things I’ve learned:
- To get engagement, or to have your posts shown to people, you have to have some engagement. Sound impossible? There is a way (more on that later).
- The posts that are shown to the least people are posts with links in them, so it’s important to post other stuff too – status updates, photos, videos – pretty much anything people will be interested in.
- It’s not as simple as getting people to just engage with your posts. You have to have them engage pretty quickly after posting for it to have much effect.
- If people share your post to Facebook from your blog post, it improves your reach.
Overall, I’m not loving Facebook as a source of traffic. However, I’m sure it’s just another learning curve as a lot of bloggers say the majority of their traffic comes from Facebook.
I wouldn’t recommend it as the first network you tackle, but it’s worth having a page, you never know when the algorithms might change again and work in your favour. In the meantime, Becky from Cuddle Fairy has a fantastic post about how to grow your Facebook likes.
The one thing I do love about Facebook is the blogger groups. They are fantastic for building your social media, growing your traffic and having a community of like minded people around to help each other out and share advice.
There are two I join in daily:
- Blogger Club UK ran by myself, Becky from Cuddle Fairy, Laura from Life With Baby Kicks and Clare from Mudpie Fridays and our fab team of admins.
- UK Awesome Bloggers ran by Zena from Zena’s Suitcase
There are daily threads to promote your Twitter, Facebook (this is the part where you can get that all important first engagement), Pinterest, Instagram, blog comments and more.
Both groups have a lovely group of people who all reciprocate on the threads and don’t just link dump. If you want to promote your blog and social media, these are both great start places.
Do you use Facebook for promoting your blog? Does it work well for you? If so, why not share some tips in the comments 🙂
You can find me here: Twitter Facebook Bloglovin Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!
I found that you really need to make a fb fan page – BUT fb then wants you to use your personal page for everything – it kind of defeats the purpose just a bit! Belonging to a community like Blogger Club UK really boosts fb interaction (although I’m still not sure what impact it has on my blog overall….)
I agree – my page would be much more active if I could use it to like and comment on other blogger’s stuff (I know technically I can but it doesn’t seem to do them any good!). I love the community feel of the groups and I do think they’ve had a positive influence on my blog.
I’ve got to agree with you here. It is so fickle! The best part is meeting new people. I’ve met lots of people on FB simply by commenting on other blog pages or on my own.
That’s great, it is a good place for chatting to people and building a friendship with other bloggers
While I’m not a newbie blogger, I am however a social-media newbie. I did have a profiles in most of them but never really did anything with them. I left it to my blog which automatically updated all my social-media accounts whenever I published a new post. But that’s about it and as you can guess had very little interaction in most of them. But not anymore, especially since joining the groups. 😀 Your blog is very informative especially for someone like me. 😀 Thank you! Sorry for the long comment. Xx
The groups are great for anyone who’s not that into social media as they force people to interact and before long, you realise you’re enjoying it! Thank you and don’t apologise, I love long comments 🙂 x
I LOVE Facebook. I get 90% of my traffic from it. I highly recommend posting daily, early morning before 10 and between 8.30-10pm. Watch your insights see when your readers are most active, compare them with your analytics to get the best traffic you can. Schedule posts. Engage with your audience, always reply and share your fb posts directly in groups.
I do all of that except scheduling posts for the right times and comparing analytics, so that’s definitely what I need to work on. Thanks for the great advice 🙂
Fabulous tips as always Debbie! Facebook is such a difficult network – it certainly knows how to make money anyway! Thanks so much for the mention & links. x
Im not a fan either and can’t seem to generate the level which I would like!! Thanks for the mention though 🙂 our group rocks xx
You’re welcome! It does, it’s the best part of Facebook lol x
On my Everton Football blog Facebook is great. However that’s because I post in all the Everton groups and everyone enjoys reading this content, I think lol. But my DadvWorld blog about my life as a Dad seems to get little love from Facebook. I’m thinking maybe because I’m new but Twitter seems to be my go to media platform lately. Most of the Facebook groups have soooooooo many rules it’s a days job reading them. I always interact and follow them but honestly I’d like people to read my content because they enjoy it, not just because my comment was above theirs in a group. Great post and look forward to joining your groups, be nice!! 🙂
Some of the rules are unreal! I like to think our group has a minimal amount of rules and we’re very friendly 🙂 I know what you mean about comment threads, mostly I don’t join them because you can tell the person didn’t really care about what you had to say, I mostly use them for social media. I prefer twitter too and stumble upon, both are fab for traffic
I don’t focus heavily on F personally or for my blog because I don’t like their way of operating, but I do share all of my blog posts and a few other things through the week. Despite how little they usually share my updates (I don’t boost.), I still get 1-3 referrals to my blog from it. I agree with the things you pointed out about engagement. Thank you for sharing!
Every little helps. If any of those referrals become regular readers, it makes it worthwhile! Thank you 🙂
I like the sound of the FB groups and I am heading over to take a look. I think it’s just my mother who looks at mine! haha.
Do them out, they are really good for building relationships with bloggers. Lol, hopefully you will find some new readers too 🙂
I still get the majority of my traffic from FB. Its where most of the people that actually know me are made aware of new posts. I’ve found that by posting picures, memes, and other mindless stuff that people are likely to “like”, it tells FB that those people are interested in what the ThirstyDaddy FB is offering and makes it more likely my links end up in their feed
I think that’s my down fall, I don’t share my page with personal friends or even tell them I write a blog. I would probably get more likes that way, but I said in the beginning I wasn’t going to do that and even though I’ve given in and started an FB page, I still hold firm on that point. I think I need to start sharing more fun stuff instead of just blog posts
We discussed the benefits of having a page on FB vs. just a personal profile in a FB group I’m in earlier today. There are pros and cons, but basically if you want to do paid marketing, you have to have a page. That’s what finally made me break down. I still haven’t posted anything but a cover and profile photo on it, though!
Yes, a lot of brands insist of Facebook coverage so it is worth having one just for that alone. Lol good luck with it when you get started 🙂
Facebook is my most engaged social platform for my blog by a long shot and the one I find easiest to get something out of when it comes to my blog – I struggle with Twitter as I just dont enjoy it much, and I like Instagram but dont find it very useful for my blog traffic.
I find Facebook works best for me when I use it for “mini blogs” rather than just sharing my blog links – it gets me much more engagement xx
I love Twitter for my blog, I think everyone has that one network they prefer. I agree about Instagram.
I love that idea for FB I tend to just share the link and the same sort of information I would put in a tweet. I think I’ll start writing a bit more and see if it tempts people to click, thanks 🙂 x
I love Facebook, it might not be my biggest network but it is my favourite network. I am such a Facebook geek anyway, though I have caved and pay!
I’m definitely more of a Twitter girl lol. I think Facebook works well if you pay though!
How My Blog Post Promotion Has Changed With Time - My Random Musings
[…] always in my top five referrals and I love it as a network so I enjoy spending time there. I chose Facebook because although I curse it and its stupid algorithms, it does sort of work. What I also like about […]