Why Your Facebook Posts Aren’t Going Viral and How to Fix It
Are you envious of viral posts? You know what I mean, it’s that nagging feeling that everyone else’s Facebook posts are being shared, but yours isn’t. And frankly, getting people to share your posts is not an easy thing to do. And to make matters worse, Facebook has continued to decrease the organic reach of most posts … particularly those on business fan pages. Even getting people to see your posts in the first place can be challenging.
But if you want, people might not only see your posts, but share them as well. Now I can’t promise that solving the following five common problems will make every post go viral, but it sure will help you get more love from the people on Facebook.
1. Your posts lack emotion
Your posts are likely simply lacking in emotion. And emotion is what draws people in on social media, it draws people in through visual drama, humor, and sometimes even anger or frustration.
Here’s what to do about it:
Be more personal with your posts. Share stories that would not be expected. Tell people what goes on behind the scenes in your business or in your life. Maybe even some photos of you doing silly things. These types of posts will help you be more real to your followers and go a long way in helping them connect with your business.
Remember, people do business with people … not companies.
2. Your posts cannot be shared
Boring content alert! An interesting fact, it does not make a post to share. Neither what you ate for breakfast, which movie theater you just recorded, or any poignant observation you made (text only). These types of posts are ignored or simply put people to sleep. If you don’t share things on Facebook, keep posting these kinds of things. Otherwise, be more creative.
Here’s what to do about it:
Find out what’s viral and emulate it or share that content with your followers. Two great tools for this are Post Planner and BuzzSumo.
3. Your time is not working
Quick … what is the best time to post to your Facebook fan page? You do not know
So that means you are not tracking your results.
Here’s what to do about it:
Use your Fan Page Insights to monitor when your followers are on Facebook and watch analytics on your page posts. And don’t be afraid to try new things. You may discover something unexpected.
4. You don’t share your own things
If you don’t share, how can you expect someone else to? That’s probably not a fair question. But that fact is, viral posts are often the result of a snowball effect, and you can start pushing that snowball yourself. If you’re not interested in paying for Facebook ads (and you should seriously consider doing some ads), the best thing to do is share your fan page content yourself.
Here’s what to do about it:
Make sure to share things on your personal social media accounts from your fan page that you want others to see. Don’t limit this to just sharing within Facebook. You can extend these shares to other social channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. And, if you have employees or other partners who can help that snowball roll using their personal accounts, so much the better.
5. People don’t care about the topics of your posts
Chances are your fans just aren’t interested in the things you’re posting about. Viral content does not usually come from commercial or industry-related elements.
Here’s what to do about it:
It’s okay to post “off topic” if it’s relevant enough to your audience, and it will engage them to the point where they will start to see other sales-driving posts from you. So consider posting on topics that have been proven to be viral. Klout created a list of the 10 most important viral topics:
– music
– TV
– Holidays
– Software
– religion
– Famous
– Films
– books
– Deal
– Food