That Darn Facebook Algorithm 🤬

Every Wednesday morning I play racquetball with a group of guys much older than me. (Side note: It turns out that the youth advantage doesn't much matter when you're playing with someone with much better racquet skills.)

Anyway, over the course of time we've developed a running joke — every time we miss a shot we lift up our racquet and stare at it, as if it has a hole in it. 👀 Because of course it's not our lack of skill that could've caused us to miss the shot, right?!

It's funny only because it's so characteristic of humans in general. We love to place blame anywhere but on ourselves.

I see a similar routine play out when discussing engagement on social media, only it's not a joke.

Up and coming marketers are quick to blame the Facebook Algorithm for their lack of engagement. Then they'll go listen to some guru talk about algorithm updates and how to hack them. (Nevermind that there are over 50,000 versions of FB running concurrently around the world).🤦‍♂️

Listen to me clearly: Just like it isn't my racquet's fault for missing the ball, it's not the algorithm's fault for your crappy engagement.

Here are three foolproof ways to increase your engagement:

1. Produce Quality Content

   Content is king!👑 There's no path to quality engagement that doesn't go through quality content. You can screw up nearly everything else and still get great engagement if your content is good enough. Invest as much time into your content as any other part of your social media strategy.

2. Give First!

   Social media is supposed to be SOCIAL. Comment on 10 friends' posts every day and your engagement will increase. Try to make it different people each day and leave meaningful comments. Your engagement will increase even more if you're having conversations with your friends in Messenger. Don't expect to get engagement if you're not giving engagement to others!

3. Speak To Your Audience

   Of course this assumes you know who your target audience is. Start there. Once you know who your audience is, focus on connecting with new people in that audience. Your message is for who it's for. Cut the rest out.

   If you have a large number of friends but your engagement is not where you'd like it, I recommend running FriendFilter. It will tell you which of your friends haven't engaged with any of your content. They're good people to remove from your friend's list. It's worth the few bucks. (Link)

Going forward, every time you want to blame the algorithm, picture me staring at my racquet wondering how in the world the ball passed right through it and laugh. Then get to work on the three items above!

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FB Live 🎥:

How to find peace amongst a chaotic life! (Link)