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The art of brevity and humour is damaging your success on Facebook.

To reach people in the news feed you MUST write words for the right people at the right time.[bctt tweet=”To reach people in the news feed you MUST write words for the right people at the right time” username=”fionacatchpowle”]

I’ve spent the last 3 years watching words on Facebook and they way they have an impact or not.  I have absolute clear evidence on this and if you choose to work with me more closely you will get to see first hand what happens behind the scenes.

What you say matters – how many words, how often you write the words and the actual words you choose.

When was the last time you exhaled with satisfaction at a Facebook post?

You know that kind of sigh breathing out moment with a little punch in the air, and ‘yes’ under your breath?

If it was some time ago, or doesn’t happen very often let’s see if we can get you back on track by understanding what is going on with words on Facebook right now.

Here are 4 areas of your content to look at with a focus on the words and what you can do to help yourself find that sweet-spot and have a stress-free content planning session.

1. Words Count

Facebook may be for people, created by people but the daily mechanics are operated by computers and logic.

It may not seem logical at times I’d agree, but the famous algorithm is a humongous set of logic gates and formulas fed by the artificial intelligence pixies

– AI for short – a mythical creature scurrying around just helps to symbolise how it’s working, in my head anyway!

In order for the AI (pixies as mentioned) to know who you are trying to connect with you need words for them to read #lightbulbmoment

You also need enough words to gain inference.

Essentially, what are you on about and why do you need your peeps to read them?

So, who are you? what are you talking about? and who do you want to listen?

Examples of posts with very few words that do not help would be:

  • Take a look at this!
  • Are you in?
  • Something cool coming soon!

Examples of posts that mean the same but say so much more are:

  • Have you seen our new widgets with blue spots that match the gadget last week?
  • Starting on 1st Sept, this online course will show you how to plan your content for a whole month – doors closing in 48 hours!
  • If you need to know how to run a successful ad campaign without the drama, I have just the thing arriving in your inbox on Monday

2. Purpose

The type and number of words need to have an intention or purpose.

You are in business and therefore have a service or product to sell right?

When you are creating content for your Facebook Page you are building a conversation with a view to commerce. If the conversation flows it’s much nicer for both you and the people reading #lightbulbmoment[bctt tweet=”When you are creating content for your Facebook Page you are building a conversation with a view to commerce. If the conversation flows it’s much nicer for both you and the people reading #lightbulbmoment” username=”fionacatchpowle”]

Each post will be different but there will be an over-all theme and you’ll find there are a bunch or words we could call key to your content, so hunt them down and keep them in a safe place to scatter around regularly, that way the AI knows who should see your content each and every time.

NB: This alone will increase your post reach with very little effort

The AI is working in conjunction with the algorithm and needs to see a purpose to your content to know who to show it too. If you don’t have an overall intention to your content how are the AI pixies supposed to guess?

3. Structure

Let´s be clear here, yes sentence structure does matter as there needs to be a flow to the content.

It’s not so apparent on Twitter and Instagram because of the format but Facebook and LinkedIn need proper sentences.

The AI is not a grammar checker but if all things are equal and your post is in competition with a similar Page, same subject why not make it easier to understand.

  1. Tune into your Tribe

This is where people get it wrong most I’d say. You have something to say, but are your people listening?

If you have not tuned in to your tribe, by posting regularly and seeing what they like, how can you get reach and engagement that enters the realm of a conversation, that, as we have agreed, leads to commerce?

Your tribe aka followers, page likes and ultimately the people you hope will buy from you need to get to know your message.

But do you know what your message is … really?

If you do know what your message is are you being consistent and creative to keep people interested?

You need to write something on your page and see if it resonates. It could be short it could be long, but if it is not relevant and meaningful to what they were expecting to hear from you they will switch off.

The AI pixies sit there with their head in their hands when you get it wrong. I can hear them now – ‘man what were you thinking’?

You can work out if you are tuning in correctly to your tribe by monitoring your results in Insights. Which kind of content is working? What words do they seem to like?

Here are 3 key questions to help you plan what to say & when.

Rinse and repeat until you start getting results – of course you need to know what your definition of a result is as well.

  1. What problem do your tribe have and how do they currently feel?
  2. How can you solve that problem and how will your tribe feel once you have fixed them?
  3. What is special about you that means you are the best person/product/website to help your tribe?

Of course the skill is then to not be talking about yourself all the time as in the #Ruleof3 (a #CyberGran principle).

Your words (aka content) need to come from the heart and they need to fuel your bottom line, or there is no point.

A picture paints a thousand words, but unless the pixies see some words they really don’t know what the picture is about!

Get back on track with words for now and you will see your organic reach grow.

During #FacebookFit Summer Camp 2018 we will be going through more Facebook fundamentals and making sure you have your framework in place. In the 5 days the course runs (online, so you can participate from anywhere in the world) you will learn how to reduce your social media stress levels, find your inner story-teller and have a clear pathway from which to get great results. The Class of 2017 had a ball, and this will be the ONLY version of #FacebookFit this year

You can SIGN UP HERE

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