Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Who Actually Sees What You Post on Social Media?

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social media

When your organization posts text or photos or video on social media, who sees what you posted?  Answer: It depends on which social media you’re using.

Know the differences so you can invest your social media time wisely.

Facebook is huge, but the percentage of your followers who see your Facebook posts is small. If you have less than 10,000 page likes, on average, it’s about 7%.  That’s right, 93% of your followers won’t see a particular post! (And the problem is even worse the more followers you attract.)

Why?  Because Facebook doesn’t show everybody everything.

Let’s say that you have a follower named Sarah Thompson.  What will Sarah see in her News Feed (the main page where people spend their time on Facebook)?

  • She is more likely to see your story if she has recently liked, commented upon, or shared another of your posts.
  • If she likes text-only posts, those are your posts that she’s more likely to see.  If she likes photos, she’s more likely to see your posts that contain photos, and so on.
  • She’s more likely to see your post if other people have liked, commented, or shared, and less likely if they have complained about it.

Plus, Facebook keeps tweaking its algorithm (the rules by which it decides which of your posts get seen), sometimes from week to week.  The only guaranteed way to get seen is to pay Facebook for the privilege.

Bottom line: If you are a small organization, you will need exceptional content over a long period of time to get your Facebook posts seen.

Twitter is different from Facebook: it shows every tweet you tweet to everyone who follows you.  The trouble is that there are so many messages on Twitter, and they all rush by so fast, Sarah may not notice your message!

You will need to tweet the same basic message multiple times to give Sarah a better chance of actually reading it.  Again, plan on taking time to build a loyal following.

Google+ gives you the chance to target your message to the people you choose. You can send to specific communities (where everyone will receive it) or to circles that you have created (where they will receive it only if they have followed you back).

Check carefully to see whether the people you want to reach actually use Google+. Is Sarah there?  If not, she’s never going to see that brilliant article you posted!

LinkedIn gives you three ways to post: by updating your status, by participating in a group, or by writing a long-form post for LinkedIn Pulse (essentially, blogging on LinkedIn).

  • Status updates potentially get seen by everyone who has connected with you (unlike status updates on Facebook, and more like on Google+), but they tend to get pushed way down the page quickly (as on Twitter).
  • Groups allow you to post to a more selected audience…but it depends on them to check messages from the group and to click on yours.  Will Sarah pay the attention and take the time to open your post?
  • Posts are more likely to be seen by people who have connected with you, but they are available for everyone to see. All these ways of putting content on LinkedIn will be there and easily accessible to anyone who comes looking for you.

We could go on adding examples from YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., but the point would be the same:

Know where your audience is on social media.

Know what it takes to get your message seen on that particular medium.

Take time to build a loyal audience–so THEY come looking for YOU.

Why I Like Social Media

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“You have a Ph.D. Why do you like working with social media?”

I’d been helping Bobby, a young nonprofit professional in Ohio, think about relocating to the Boston area. He found my advice  useful.

Clearly, however, he found my choice of career puzzling.  Over time, I had moved from the academic life to nonprofit management, and now I specialize in nonprofit communications, including social media.

Here are some of the answers I gave him.  With social media, I can:

  • Help worthwhile organizations build closer ties to people.  Your agency’s Facebook friends and Twitter followers end up identifying with you, caring about your work, and supporting you with volunteer time or donations.
  • Continue learning more and more about any subject that fascinates me by following ongoing conversations on that topic.
  • Learn about subjects I had no idea I wanted to know about, until some interesting item crossed my path.
  • Keep in touch with people I like,  even when we’re quite unlike. 
  • Let some serendipity into my life.

How would you answer Bobby’s question?  Why do you like working with social media?

The Case of the Unknown Audience

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“You’ve got to help us,” the Executive Director said. “We have all these different audiences, and we don’t know them.  We’re communicating in the dark.”

Do the detective work to know your audiences

Do the detective work to know your audiences

“A hundred dollars an hour plus expenses,” I said.  As a private detective, I’m used to searching in the dark.  Besides, it would be a break from snooping on cheating husbands and wives.

Here’s how I tracked down the unknown audiences.

Searched the case files.  I looked through the database for tips about donors and prospects.  I combed the Board bios and meeting minutes to get the skinny on the directors.  For clients, the agency balked: confidentiality, they said.  I’d heard that one before.  “Give me a sample of client folders with the names removed.  I’ll take it from there.”

Talked to informants.  Who knows each audience the best?  The nice lady at the front desk told me stories about the people who come in looking for help that would curl your hair.  The program directors dished the dirt on the organizations they collaborate with: thick as thieves, but not as well funded. The Executive Director herself knew all the politicians in town.  I made notes.

Beat the pavement.  Take a tip from an old gumshoe: don’t wait by the phone.  Get out and talk to people.  Interview people from each audience.  Find out their motives.  How else will you know how to motivate them?

Tail the suspects.  These days, people leave trails a mile wide all over the Internet.  Track them.  What footprints can you find through a web search?  Who do they visit on Facebook?  See what business they’re conducting in LinkedIn groups.  Read the notes they scrawl and toss onto Twitter.  You don’t have to snap photos: they’re doing it for you, on Instagram and Pinterest and other juke joints all around.  Make yourself known there and see who talks.

Follow the money.  Are your audiences making payments to other organizations?  Look at donor lists to see what relationships they have on the side.

Get the suspects in a room.  Call it a focus group.  Call it an advisory board.  Call it Ishmael, if you like–just ask them the questions.  Put them at ease and they’ll sing like a room full of canaries.

I made my report.  The Executive Director was grateful. “Now we know who they are, what they want, where to find them, and how to talk to them.  I can just see the volunteers and donors coming in!”

“Good,” I said.  “Don’t spend it all in one place.”  They would need to do more investigation as their audiences changed.  Good investigators don’t come cheap.

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