Facebook and Hiding Posts

Last week, Intel's social media strategist posted data highlighting negative feedback from Facebook fans. What do you think explains this behavior? What can brands do to avoid having their posts hidden, or worse, yet, be reported for spam? Intel's strategist says the problem is brands looking to increase their fan counts rather than engaging with the fans they have. Do you agree? Can you offer any other tips?

1. Ekaterina is 100% right: while it’s natural to focus on quantity over quality, marketers know that a single fan who’s engaging with your content is worth 10 who watch it scroll by. This is as true for page owners as it for Facebook itself: it’s more important to wring engagement out of your existing customers, rather than trying to generate another billion.

2. We highlight the big number for a variety of reasons: it’s public, so you can’t skew it; it doesn’t require qualification or explanation; and it makes us look good. Only a savvy boss or client will ask about the second metric.

3. I suspect part of the problem lies in advertising. Most marketers have bought ads to increase their fans. The thing is, in order to drive their numbers up, we cast our nets too widely, thus catching people who are only tangentially interested in our product or service. One solution, then, is to more narrowly define our advertising parameters.