Google and Facebook Changed and So Must I

Like many of the business owners I help, performing marketing duties for my site is not my primary focus, which is working directly with clients. Finding ways to make efficient use of my online marketing time is very important to me. However, recent changes on Facebook and Google have forced me to give up convenience in favor of increased engagement and better SEO. Discover why I’ve stopped using third party apps to post on Facebook.

Two of my fave folks to follow on Facebook are Denise Wakeman and Mari Smith. Recently, both have made several posts on the negative impact of using third party apps to auto-populate your Facebook business page with blog posts from your main site. The app-populated posts weren’t showing up in the fan’s News Feed consistently, and the ranking was devalued by Facebook.

Try This, Try That

I’ve tried several blog-importing apps such as using Facebook’s internal app and then Social RSS to publish to the Notes tab. Both were quite buggy and populated the business page hours or days after the original blog post. My recent favorite was RSS Graffiti and I had it post to my Wall. It was very stable and posted within minutes of the original.

The Proof is in the Stats

I thought all was well because the Facebook Insights showed that I was getting twice as many impressions (or clicks) as I had fans. But, the posts from Denise and Mari were telling a different story for folks with large followings and heavy engagement.

What the numbers clearly demonstrated was that posts made by hand, not using third party apps, were getting far more impressions and garnering a lot more engagement. This included the above mentioned RSS apps, plus apps that import from Twitter, like Hootsuite.

Denise recently made another post about the SEO impact of social media titled Google Search Gets More Social – Are you ready?

Can’t Argue with the Facts

Putting convenience aside, I tried it myself. My engagement numbers doubled the next day and have stayed that way since. I’ve also garnered a few more fans who “Liked” the page.

I’ve coupled this change with another that Facebook recently implemented, which was the ability to interact with folks as my business page. I’m really enjoying that feature and use it often to comment on other folk’s posts as my page.

What to Make of It

Of course, there’s no way to know which of the two changes I made are now driving my Facebook stats up the most, and frankly I don’t care. What I do care about is surfing the incoming wave and making the most of the opportunities available to me.

What about you? Have you made any changes to your posting habits on Facebook?

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Follow Up
After making the changes, within two weeks my Facebook stats nearly tripled quadrupled and they continue to keep going up.