New FB like page. Little to no progress. What am I doing wrong?

January 28, 2015 6:34 PM

I created a new Facebook page to share tips/tricks related to using iOS. There has been little to no likes on my page, and it's gnawing at me. Am I doing something wrong? More details inside the fold.

Okay, so at the suggestions given to me by several friends, I've created a Facebook like page with daily tips/tricks on how to use iOS. A friend designed the cover page logo, and I designed my own logo. I was given this suggestion because I've been doing a bit of freelancing related to tech support with iOS devices/Mac devices (and you can see some of my answers here as well), as well as my experiences when I worked at the Apple store. I know my stuff with iOS/Mac, to put it frankly. I thought it'd be a good idea, so I set the like page up.

First day, invited all my 500+ friends on Facebook. About 70 joined. Made posts, and true to the title, I posted daily tips.

The problem? I have had received absolutely ZERO recognition on my page, other than a few likes at the beginning. My audience has literally disappeared. I mean, nobody comments on my daily tips/posts saying things like "wow, I learned something new!" or even asking questions (despite me making it clear questions were welcome). I have shared my page on my main FB wall, with absolutely NO replies or additional likes (even when I asked my friends for their support on my page). Even when I asked a couple of friends to share the like page link on their respective walls, still no bites. It makes me feel under appreciated, too.

I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS! Sorry for the shouting, but WHAT. AM. I. DOING. WRONG? Is my page not attractive enough? Am I saying the wrong things?

This is making me feel VERY upset. I understand my page is new; I have to start somewhere, etc., I do understand that, yes, but this is really crushing my self-esteem right now. I feel ignored, I feel invisible/like I don't exist at the moment in regards to my like page. Oddly enough, any other subsequent posts on my FB wall unrelated to my like page gets the normal amount of likes/replies, so that's not a concern. I feel like, for some reason, my page "smells" to the extent where nobody seems interested or even cares enough.

This also makes me angry because people see my tips (I see the post counts), but they don't even bother to thank me or follow-up with questions. I mean, maybe I'm being unreasonable here, but I would've thought that like pretty much any like page, my page would at least have 2-3 people liking my posts or asking stuff. Nada, nothing, zilch.

Not only that, but I'm Deaf and so are a majority of my friends. How is this relevant? It's a small community, and when looking at similar like pages that well-known Deaf people have set up, they get plenty of likes. Why not me? What am I doing wrong?

Please give me constructive criticism of my page. I'm already feeling defeated and ready to just give up and deactivate the page, but I really want to impress others with my knowledge and also to help me network and find a job, but the lack of attention my page is getting is making me very upset and harming my self-esteem at the moment. (Therapy? I'm newly in therapy, but my appointment isn't until next week. Just wanted to beat you to the bush.)

It was the last straw today when I shared my like page on FB and literally NOBODY liked my new page or had any response for 4 hours. That's just not normal. I truly feel like my page has cooties or something. Maybe I'm overreacting, but whatever.

My Like page - link

Similar page by a well-known Deaf figure (different topic, but very popular nonetheless) - link

Please be honest in your feedback. I'm feeling very crushed right now, ignored and defeated, but I do welcome feedback.

posted by dubious_dude to Human Relations (30 answers total)

Well, you have 70 likes. I can't remember the exact stats, but you will reach something like 10% max of your likes, which is maybe 7 people. There are other factors at play with the FB algorithm that will limit or expand your reach. For example, time of day of posting, whether or not there is a photo.

Quite honestly what you need to do is use FB advertising (which is dirt cheap) to encourage more of your target market to like the page.

I don't know exactly who your target market is, so be sure your advertising is targeting the right people who might want your service (are you marketing a service?)

After that, you just have to really really engage your audience. It's a conversation.
posted by Nevin at 6:40 PM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, i never interact with facebook pages. I don't even accept like, 90% of the invites people send me. It's just not how I use facebook.
posted by Amanda B at 6:40 PM on January 28, 2015 [20 favorites]

The "similar page" you linked to has bright colors and lots of people's faces. The faces have very expressive emotions on them. It looks bright and human. If I read that page I'd feel a human connection, and would be more likely to respond with a "like" because of the sense that there is a human on the other side.

Your page is gray and low contrast and graphically dull. I couldn't find a single picture of you or any human being for that matter. I didn't read any of the text, but just graphically it feels kind of amateur-hour and automated. So even if I got value from it, I think I'd be less likely to like it, but it doesn't seem like there's a person on the other end.
posted by alms at 6:45 PM on January 28, 2015 [8 favorites]

I feel like this is just the wrong platform for the sort of content you have there. This seems like something that would be super useful in a blog format, so that you could attract visitors that happen to google how to do something in particular in iOS. To be honest, I'm not a fan of most such pages on Facebook -- sometimes my friends set up pages like that and request me to like them, and if I'm not opposed to the content, I might oblige them. But I'm primarily on Facebook to see what's happening in my friends' and family's lives - if I wanted daily iOS tips, I would add a blog like that to my RSS reader. I could see other people subscribing to a daily email with iOS tips. But honestly, 90% of the time I don't need iOS tips -- except when I have a specific thing I need to do, and then I just google it.
posted by peacheater at 6:45 PM on January 28, 2015 [25 favorites]

Facebook is actually pushing page interaction between 2% to 15% for most pages. Also some of your analytic data and insights won't show until you have 100 likes to your page.

Facebook is basically pushing pages to pay for interaction and likes through advertising and boosted posts. It sucks but that's the way it is. It may not be the best platform for what you want. Have you tried twitter?

Source: I work on social media for a franchise, run a marketing blog, and have a career in marketing.
posted by Crystalinne at 6:47 PM on January 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

There's a thread running through a lot of your questions of looking for validation from friends from "likes" on social media. What you're doing wrong may have nothing to do with the content of your page and what your friends think of it. It honestly may have more to do with your fixation on people "liking" your content as a means of validating their relationship with you as a person. Sometimes there's honestly not much rhyme or reason to what I like on facebook and what I pass by, and that goes for posts by close friends and passing acquaintances alike.
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:52 PM on January 28, 2015 [19 favorites]

I think there is probably an audience for the content you are putting out there, but just assuming that audience happens to overlap with your already existing 500+ friends, I think, is your mistake in thinking. How do you know that everyone you invited even uses iOS?

It can be difficult at first, but I think promoting your page through other avenues might help you in attracting a larger following. I'm thinking along the lines of message boards or Twitter/Tumblr or other social media that might help you tap into the more niche audience that would have an appreciation for what you're focusing on..

I also think Facebook is probably not the right place for this type of content.. The subject matter feels a bit impersonal, which tends to be at odds with the way people I know use Facebook. This seems more suited to a blog format, for what my humble opinion is worth. My recommendation would be to re-tool your approach, setting up a blog on a free or cheap platform like blogspot or wordpress or tumblr, and then using Facebook and Twitter to promote and supplement the content that you generate on the blog itself.
posted by wats at 6:53 PM on January 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I am one of the last people on the planet without a Facebook account, so I can't follow your page, but I looked at it and I learned a few things (and I consider myself pretty Apple savvy). So thanks! I'll let others speak to why you might not be getting the traffic and likes you want...
posted by cecic at 6:54 PM on January 28, 2015

VERY upset ... crushing my self-esteem ... ignored ... invisible ... makes me angry ... defeated ... last straw ... WHAT. AM. I. DOING. WRONG?

Caring about Facebook.
posted by flabdablet at 6:55 PM on January 28, 2015 [35 favorites]

Have you checked out your friends' profiles to see whether they "like" other pages frequently? Perhaps they don't, as a rule, "like" pages even if they find them useful. I certainly don't. In fact I very rarely do anything other than read my news feed or interesting links that people post - I don't even make my own postings more than once every month or two. There are lots of different kinds of Facebook users.
posted by Cygnet at 6:55 PM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Not trying to threadsit, but wanted to note that the feedback so far has been helpful, especially considering my page's 'dull' design. I agree and do want to try and improve that.

I'm not sure if I made it clear enough in my post, but I asked a couple of friends to share my page link on their walls. They did, and that didn't help, which is also one of the reasons I'm upset - even them sharing it didn't make a difference.

I hope that made sense.
posted by dubious_dude at 7:00 PM on January 28, 2015

First of all, you are comparing apples with oranges. Your page is about iOS. The "similar page" is the page of a comedy brand that posts loads of videos and is in no way similar except that the person behind it is Deaf. You are never going to pull that kind of engagement because your content is not personal and your audience isn't going to have that kind of personal affinity with you.

Now compare apples with apples. That other page has 425,000 fans and a really good post on that page gets 60 likes, 2 comments and 1 share.

Second of all, you need to understand the numbers that count. Make sure you're looking at your Insights. Likes are about your ego; Post Reach and Engagement are about the actual traction of your content. You cannot live and die by the stats on each post or use your Facebook page as a referendum on how much your friends like you; you need to look at the trend over time.

Finally, you need to be a little livelier in pimping your content. Your videos are buried way back in December; I'd do a "Throwback Thursday: Did you miss this great video on Little-known Privacy Settings on iOS?" post tomorrow and re-post the video.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:04 PM on January 28, 2015 [9 favorites]

It's not you, it's Facebook.

I do social media stuff as part of my job and the current thinking among marketing-type people who analyze the impact of Facebook and other social platforms is that Facebook offers a shitty bang for your buck these days. It's much harder to use FB for marketing purposes than it used to be. For instance they've made changes to the algorithms they use to decide who even sees your posts - even once someone likes your page they'll only see like 2% of your posts in their feed. Lots of people who use social media for promotion like this are moving to other platforms now b/c FB isn't really worth the effort anymore.

You could experiment with paid posts and ads and see how that goes, or just move to a different platform. Sorry you're dealing with this frustration!
posted by aka burlap at 7:05 PM on January 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sorry, forgot to add: there are some things you can do to make your page as successful as possible given Facebook's (constantly changing) algorithms. Note that FB made some changes in 2015 specifically (mostly penalizing promotional content) so when you're looking for tips look for recent ones. Here's an article that looks helpful, here's another.
posted by aka burlap at 7:11 PM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

There aren't loads of posts yet. So I read them but there wasn't really anything useful to me. Maybe there will be once there's more content. Also the popular pages tend to have content that will provoke comment our discussion. There's not too much to say about a tip on how to use my phone. Perhaps have some more open ended posts inviting interaction (not just requests for help)?
posted by KateViolet at 7:16 PM on January 28, 2015

First off: breath. It's been, what, a week? You're not going to be hugely successful in a week.

Second: the kind of content you're sharing isn't great for the way you're sharing it. Facebook posts are ephemeral and time specific. Those sorts of tips and tricks are useful in the moment in which you need to know them and not that interesting in moments in which you don't need to know them and it's extremely unlikely that any of your friends actually need to know those things in the moment in which they happen to show up in their news feed (if, given FB's lack of reach for pages, they even do).

They'd be far more useful to the world in a blog format where they'll be better indexed by Google and where people can find them in the moment when they need them. Do little video clips or multi-screenshot tutorials where appropriate.

You mention that you're in the deaf community, and I can imagine there might be an audience for the kind of tutorial videos that get posted on YouTube all the time, but with signing or appropriate on-screen captioning / lettering in place of a simple voice track. Perhaps that's a niche you could fill?

Feel free to then tease those longer blog entries on your FB page as an entry point to that audience but don't expect a ton of interaction with them directly on FB. That's just not the kind of content that most people are looking for on FB.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:16 PM on January 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

To add a second comment because I was on my phone earlier. You really can't compare your page to one that has over 24,000 likes. They're just not the same thing, it's apples and oranges, not just in terms of size, but also content. I'd bet the farm that they're paying Facebook LOADS of money to get that much interaction on their updates.

Also, Facebook is such an odd thing. Like I said, I work for a franchise so we have stores all over the country. Some stores have amazing Facebook interaction while others don't, and they're all the same company! It just depends on: What you offer, how you interact, the type of content, when you share it, your audience, and how much you spend on advertising. Again, I think Twitter might be something to try if you're doing short things with the goal of people sharing them.

Anecdote: One of my clients at an old job was a clinic. They would constantly tell me that they wanted to see the type of interaction that the HOSPITAL they were a part of had. Well the hospital had thousands of likes, whereas the clinic had only 200. Plus the hospital had full time social media staff, whereas they had a small monthly social media marketing plan through us. They were expecting to be able to see a difference if you post at 8AM versus 12PM like the gigantic hospital could, but the data just wasn't there and it's not feasible for them to compare themselves on that sort of scale. The hospital also had tons of information on tons of different topics, whereas the clinic was only one specialty.

That's a similar situation to what you're in. You'll have to adjust your expectations to pages and an audience that's more similar in size and style to yours, then perhaps you can compare better and see what's working and what's not.
posted by Crystalinne at 7:43 PM on January 28, 2015

Consider changing your text posts to graphics with the text in the graphic. Graphics get shared more often and are more popular than text or links.

Pay for likes, it will snowball from there.
posted by Youremyworld at 8:29 PM on January 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

They'd be far more useful to the world in a blog format where they'll be better indexed by Google and where people can find them in the moment when they need them. Do little video clips or multi-screenshot tutorials where appropriate.
I was going to suggest the same thing. I manage a Web site/Facebook page for a non-profit and have found that using a WordPress-based site with automatic publishing to Facebook, Twitter and Google+. It's a pretty niche thing, so I don't expect much, but we get a lot more attention by spreading the information across multiple platforms, including seeing a big spike in Facebook reach when I switched over from primarily publishing on Facebook. Plus, I have control of the content in a way you never will on Facebook. That's just my experience but, for things that you want to hang around a bit longer than an hour or so, I don't think Facebook is the best channel on its own.

My feeling, as a non-expert, is that your content is better on the Web more broadly than just on Facebook.
posted by dg at 8:54 PM on January 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think people just kinda want to use facebook for entertainment.
posted by kidbritish at 9:36 PM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

1 - use a blog to post your content, and encourage people to bookmark/share it - seems like people would be more likely to follow the occasional link from Facebook to an external site ('that article looks worth reading') than like/follow a Facebook page and having to see everything that you post

2 - syndicate your content with an established Apple site so that you're not reliant on your group of friends for marketing

3 - find a way for the relative success (or not) of your page to not affect your sense of self-worth
posted by dvrmmr at 10:55 PM on January 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Your tips are complex. Here's one example: "Hit the square button on the bottom-right (iPad users, on the main toolbar), tap and HOLD the "+" button that comes up in the center, and it'll show you all your recently closed tabs!"

I use iPhone every day but I don't know what you mean by the square button. What square button? The one with two squares overlapping?

Your content is not very relevant at-the-moment if I'm reading it in the Facebook app, instead of facing the exact problem you're describing. It's just not urgent to me in the moment. If I'm actually having that problem you describe, I'd be googling for the answer. But then your Facebook page wouldn't come up, so maybe you should make it a blog so that it's searchable.
posted by vienna at 10:58 PM on January 28, 2015

I'm co-admin on a page with 7000 likes, and we still post stuff that gets NO engagement, zero, nada, zilch.

We have co-admins who manage pages for local businesses and they have experimented ruthlessly with the type of content to post. Text-only? Picture only? Picture and text? And so forth. It's very frustrating and as noted you're fighting against a system which is, like the house at a casino, stacked against you for very deliberate reasons. It does seem like FB does actually prefer brands and people to the in-between stuff like your page that's essentially a variation on blog content. If it can't be monetized, well, it's no use to Facebook whatsoever.

So I'm very down on FB right now as a platform. Even so, you need to scale your expectations appropriately. I was the only admin on that page when it went from about 600 likes to 1000 and I went on hiatus when it was around 1800, and I've participated a lot less regularly since then (among about half a dozen other admins). Growing that page from 600 to 1800 was grueling. I really wanted the page to reach more of the community and despite doing everything I could to get eyeballs and piggyback on other pages and create pointers through other social media it came excruciatingly slowly.
posted by dhartung at 12:15 AM on January 29, 2015

People like and comment on things they connect with and feel a response to. I think, for various reasons, your content is hard to connect with. It's dense and wordy and I would just scroll past it if it was in my feed. Just imagine I'm on my phone zipping through in 30 seconds.

Others have suggested a blog. I think this is a great idea. Your tips could be mini-articles on your blog, with a headline, and a picture of some kind. Then on your FB page, you post the link, so it comes up with your headline, something like "How to recover closed tabs in Safari", with the picture. Then when I'm scrolling past, I know what this is, and I might want to click it. It's easier to connect with a headline+pic that tells you what you could learn.

You really can't expect people to interact with your stuff on Facebook, though. The nature of the platform is that it's ephemeral, feeds are crowded, stuff gets hidden or buried, and people tend to dip in and out very lightly. Also, the kind of mass communication you're broadcasting is directed at no-one in particular, so no-one in particular feels obligated out of politeness to respond. It's the nature of the platform, I think. Don't feel like you're being judged or that there's something wrong with you; but do think about changing your expectations and trying something different.
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:54 AM on January 29, 2015

The things that I care about enough to follow on Facebook are things that I first learned about outside of Facebook. I have a feeling that your page hasn't taken off because most people won't click in Facebook's search field and look for "cool daily Mac tips" or whatever. They're going to search for something they already know about from outside Facebook.

Your thing only exists on Facebook? Even as a Mac user myself, I have to say I wouldn't be likely (ha) to "like" that page. You should have a blog with a link to your Facebook page, and on your Facebook page you should share links to your blog posts.
posted by emelenjr at 9:11 AM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oops, I totally meant iOS when I said Mac in my earlier comment. Sorry about that.

My employer's Facebook page recently surpassed 200K followers. We still struggle to have our posts reach half that number of users, even after people share them a bunch. Still, we're the market leader in this city so we must be doing something right.

Link posts definitely work better than non-link posts. If your content only exists on Facebook and you can't share a link to it from somewhere else, then I'd recommend tagging other Facebook pages in your posts (@BusinessName, etc.) Also, hashtagging isn't nearly as popular on Facebook as it is on Twitter, but it does help. #ios is a popular tag that will get your posts noticed by people searching for that tag.
posted by emelenjr at 9:45 AM on January 29, 2015

It's mostly what Alms said. Your posts are mostly just text posts. The ones that have a video, the video preview is almost identical for each of them.

You should use a graphic with each post. Something that will give people an idea of what the post is about, without having to read any of the text. Then, if the graphic catches their attention, they'll bother to read the text.

It doesn't have to be an exact interpretation of the text. For the post about "Using Airplane Mode on iPhone/iPad/iPod", you could have a pic of a phone in airplane mode, but you'll have better luck with a photo of people sitting in a plane, like this or this.

The main difference between your page and the other example is graphics. The other page also makes their videos stand out by having different backgrounds or environments, whereas yours have identical plain backgrounds.
posted by MexicanYenta at 12:38 PM on January 29, 2015

Pay for likes, it will snowball from there.

Under no circumstances should you pay for Likes. It will hurt rather than help; engagement with your posts will go down, and the Facebook algorithm will punish you for this by showing your posts to your fans even less often.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:37 PM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think Facebook is wrong for what you are doing. I think Twitter would be a much better format, especially since it doesn't do those stupid algorithms the way FB does for pages. You'll be constrained by the character limit but I think you can definitely work within that, and your images are good.
posted by like_neon at 4:41 AM on January 30, 2015

Yes, forgot about the danger of paying for likes (including by promoting your page on Facebook). Excellent explanation about why here.
posted by dg at 12:56 PM on January 30, 2015