My Year Long Facebook Experiment: April 2015

And the experiment continues

My Year-long Facebook experiment is all about learning what’s working and what’s not for a small business fan page. I know from personal experience that this social media marketing stuff works when you work it. But what happens when you’re not working it?

Where am I now?

April was a month of slow progress and a little bit disappointing. I had more days in the month with no fans added than days when new people hit that Like button. I had a slight boost to my fans in the middle of the month (I’ll touch on why this happened later in this post) but overall, new fans came in like small drips and drops.

By the end of April, I gained 30 new fans to my Facebook page.

I’ll admit that if this was my old Facebook page, I would have been ecstatic! I was lucky to get 5 new people a month — and that was a good month.

But this Facebook experiment was about working on the Facebook expert’s advice and April was a month where I just didn’t work it. It’s quite a difference between when I was actively promoting the page and then I just stopped.

Now I understand why people run Facebook ads consistently. This stuff is just like any other form of marketing. It’s about making sure that your fan page continues to be in front of the people you want to connect with in Facebook.

And April, I was out of sight which left me out of mind. Alrighty then …. lesson learned.

To recap, here’s what happened so far this year:

January: I launched my new fan page and started getting my first followers – click here to read more about January’s experiment.

February: I really jumped right in and experimented Facebook Boost Posts. To read the details of my Facebook Boost Post experiment, click here to see February’s results.

March: By this point, I had three months of content that I could review in my Facebook Insights. It was time to start looking for patterns with my posts, images and schedule times. Get the breakdown of what I discovered when I did my first quarterly review.

What’s Working and What’s Not

When I ran my report in my Facebook Insights in my March recap, I uncovered the following information about my fan page:

• My top days were Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
• My best time of day to connect with my fans is between 12pm – 1pm and then later at night from 8pm – 9pm
• A secondary timeframe for my fan page was around 9am – 9:30am and sometime between 4:30pm – 5pm
• My top posts fall into these categories: resources to create images, visual content tips, how to use Facebook for their business, time management and encouraging quotes

My Facebook Strategy

I’m continuing to work on the Facebook strategy I worked out last month. I’m scheduling my top content from 12pm – 1pm or between 8pm – 9pm on either Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I’m also seeing an increase in the engagement with the posts I’m scheduling around 4:30pm.

I’ve continued to check my Insights to make sure that these times are still working for my fan page. Just knowing this bit of information makes my scheduling process go quicker as I know which days and times to focus on with my top content to reach more fans.

But see this fan page stuff is more than just posting up quality content at the right times of day. To grow your Facebook connections, you need to keep promoting your fan page.

I mean, you could throw the best party in your Facebook fan page: Post links of the top band playing dedicated songs, share recipes of the great food you’d serve at your party and give them a step-by-step printable guide about how you decorated your party with Pinterest tips.

All of that doesn’t matter if you don’t sent out invitations to the party. No one is going to show up if they don’t know about it.

Moving forward now includes a marketing strategy to continue promoting my fan page. Part of this includes adding in Facebook ads. I’ve done enough research now and I’m ready to try out Facebook ads.

I realize now that it’s not just about running a Facebook marketing campaign when I have something that I want to promote like my online course or my 10 Day Pinterest Challenge.

I need to keep sharing my stuff so I’m no longer out sight, out of mind.

Is Facebook organic reach back?

I’m here to say – Yep! But you still gotta work it to make this idea give you some decent reach numbers.

I mentioned in the beginning of this post that I got a small bump around the middle of the month. This one happened when I shared a link to one of my posts in two of my Facebook Groups.

This year, I’ve committed more time to participating in my Facebook Groups this year. It’s really amazing to get involved in Facebook Groups. Seriously, it’s how this social networking stuff is suppose to work!

I’ve met people from posting up questions in a group. I’ve connected with other people from answering questions and participating in a conversation in a post.

Facebook Groups take your small business or blogger experience to a whole new level in Facebook. And the added bonus with a few of my groups are the sharing days.

A couple of Facebook Groups that I joined have days where they allow us to share a Facebook post with the other members. It can be anything from a blog post to something new you’d like to promote.

Check out the Facebook post to promote my 10 Day Pinterest Challenge I shared with two of my groups:

The reach numbers in this post are pretty darn good for popping up a link in a Facebook Group and not paying for a Boost Post or a Facebook ad. The post gave me that bump in my Likes as well as adding people to my 10 Day Pinterest Challenge.

While it totally rocks to get these kinds of numbers from a simple share in a Facebook Group, don’t take advantage of being in a group and just share your stuff for the sake of self-promotion. It’s always important to follow the guidelines of the group because most of them will remove you if you turn into a constant marketing machine.

The big takeaway to learn from this is that if you get the opportunity to share your Facebook post on a weekly basis – take it! Share your stuff, even it’s just a blog post. Not only will you increase your reach with your posts, you might get some people to start following your fan page.

And that my friends is how you can start growing your organic reach in Facebook!