Why You Should Promote Your Blog on Facebook
In spite of the misgivings of many people, and all of those friends you have that make a big deal about getting off of Facebook “for good” (yeah right), it’s still one of the leading social media sites in the world. So many businesses have Facebook pages that reach millions of people each day. While some of us creatives have had a hard time with some of the changes to audience over the years, having a Facebook page for your blog is still so very necessary. However, even if you don’t run a page for your blog, you can still use Facebook effectively to promote your blog and individual posts. We’ll get to that.
Creating a Facebook Page For Your Blog
Personally, I really do recommend maintaining a Facebook page for your blog even though reaching your audience through these pages is harder than ever. There are ways to reach them anyway, and it doesn’t take much effort with all of the ways you can now fully automate and schedule your Facebook posts. Plus, let’s face it, you probably spend a good portion of your day on Facebook anyway, am I right?
Creating a Facebook page for your blog is super easy, and it’s free too. Simply go to the Pages section of your Facebook account, which can be found in the left hand menu, and click on Create Page.
You’ll then be prompted to choose what kind of page it is, which can be confusing, however if you choose Artist, Band, or Public Figure you’ll be given the option to select Blogger.
From there it’s just about the same as setting up any your regular Facebook page. You can add a profile pic, cover photo, and input all of the details in your account that you need. Voila, you have a Facebook page for your blog-it’s time to start using it!
Using Your Blog’s Facebook Page Effectively
What did you create this page for? To share your blog posts to Facebook? To engage with your readers and community in another forum? Check and check. So first thing you’ll want to do is start sharing your content to your Facebook page. You can manually update your status with links, pictures, etc. just like you would your regular Facebook page, or you can set up some automated scheduling to make it even simpler.
Many options exist for automated scheduling. Personally, I use CoSchedule which allows me to schedule directly from where I’m creating my blog post using a plugin in WordPress-CoSchedule is not cheap, but it offers a wide variety of other options along with the automated social media options. Other free or inexpensive options are easy to find though! If you have WordPress, the JetPack plugin is free and has a limited amount of sharing options-one of which is Facebook. Otherwise I’d recommend looking into Hootsuite (which I also have a paid subscription for-however it does allow you to create a free account and add up to three different social media accounts to share to.) and Buffer, which also has a free version, but limits the amount of scheduling you can do in advance unless you upgrade to paid.
The most effective daily schedule I’ve seen for posting to Facebook is to share your post when it goes live, post a status that doesn’t link to anything (like a comment, quote, question, etc.) at another time of the day, and share something from your archives at yet another time of day. You’ll also then see how Facebook limits your interaction on different kinds of posts as well.
Getting Interaction on Your Facebook Page
The first kind of interaction you’re going to want to boost is page likes. How do you get page likes? Start by inviting all of your friends and family to like your page. Just remember not to be upset if they don’t, some people like following pages, and some do not. Then invite your readers! Create a blog post or a social media post on one of your other networks talking about your new page and invite them to like it. Don’t forget to put a Facebook follow button on your sidebar so people stopping by can like your page if they want to.
Another great way to get interaction is to log in as your page and visit other pages. Like them, comment on their posts, and start some discussions. You can also pay Facebook to promote your page to certain demographics.
Post interaction is going to be a bit tougher. As you can see from the following photo I have nearly 4k likes on Facebook, but the amount of people who actually see my posts is pretty limited at first. This also differs based on the post. The post I’ve shown on the left is just a photo I uploaded that doesn’t link anywhere, and the post on the right is a link to my blog post where I interviewed Cindy of A Classic Sidewalk.
Why the difference? Well, Facebook wants to make money. So they severely limit your posts in hopes that you’ll pay them to boost the post using that big blue button shown in the image. It’s one of the biggest frustrations for us bloggers that people who liked the page don’t always see the posts. How can we help that?
Ask your readers to double check how they’ve liked your page. If they hover over the “liked” button they can select how they see your posts-it can be set to show the posts first, or just regularly, or not show them.
Boost your posts. I don’t always pay to promote my posts, but I will budget a little bit in every now and then for a really good post-this brings in new readers who will check out that post, and maybe come back and look at other posts. I usually budget about $20 a month for important posts.
Share your page status to your personal page. Something as simple as clicking Share on the page status and sharing to your personal page helps a ton. It allows all of your friends and family to see your post while giving your page credit. Everywhere you share your blog posts is more exposure-and exposure is great!
Join Blog Promotion Facebook Groups
Aside from your page, or if you don’t want to manage a page, you can join Facebook groups to promote your blog. Facebook groups are my new favorite thing, and such a great way to both connect with other bloggers and creatives, as well as promote your blog and social media. I’ve seen such a great spike in both new followers and readers, as well as new friends and blogs I love-all because of Facebook groups.
Here are just a few Facebook Groups I recommend to help boost your blog, I’ll share them in order of how I check them each day:
Grow Your Blog
This Facebook group was created by Lauren of Pink on the Cheek, but it is now being moderated by myself, along with Esther of Local Adventurer, Tausha of Taush.O, Rachel of Love, Rachel, and Katie of Beyond the Clothing.
There are daily threads for just about everything you can think of-comments, pins, tweets, stumbles, etc. as well as daily follow for follow threads to encourage people to follow your Facebook page, Twitter, etc. This group has over 2.7k members and is very active-as well as fun!
Show Your Blog Love
SYBL is another very similar group to Grow Your Blog, but it’s a little smaller and there are different people and threads-though they are daily-so it’s awesome to participate in both. This group is maintained by Jasmine of Classy, Sassy, and a bit Smartassy as well as Sami of Be Mindful, You’re Creative.
Pinterest Rockstars
This is a group I joined a while back that was created by Taylor of Pink Heels Pink Truck. I also help moderate this group, and while it’s been a little dead lately I’m really working to get it back up and running. If you love Pinterest and want to promote your pins, join us and help me get it back up and thriving.
The Blogger Life
This is another group I’ve been a member of for a while. It’s also a little smaller, but it focuses on community and friendship a lot. It’s also run by the amazing Kara of The Knight’s Place, Stephanie of Wife, Mommy, Me, and Emilie of Burke Does.
Non-Parent Blog Promotion Group
This group is just a baby and in the growing stages, but it was created by the fantastic Anna at Anna in Wonderland and she enlisted a few fun blogging friends to help moderate. I’m a moderator (but I don’t do much at the moment, along with a few other fantastic ladies. The idea is for those of us who aren’t mommy bloggers to get together and promote each others’ posts without having to share/pin/tweet things that have to do with children. She’s also good about limiting the religious posts in there which I like.
Blog + Biz BFFs
This is the group started by Melyssa at The Nectar Collective. I haven’t actively participated in it much yet but I’m interested to see where it goes-I just love her blog. She also recently shared a list of Facebook groups that she recommends and you might want to check out.
Design Your Own Blog
This group focuses more on the design elements of blogging. It connects designers and non-designers alike and allows people to give feedback as well as promote and share their blog posts on occasion.
Blog Society
This is another promotion group, but they do things a little bit differently and they’re a fun group of bloggers too.
Blogging Boost
This group is HUGE with almost 9k members. They don’t seem to do daily threads, and limit promotion to Mondays, but they provide a great forum for talking with one another and working things out.
Instagram Fabulous
This is a Facebook group devoted to growing and promoting your Instagram account, but they have files where you can add info for your blog.
Here are a few more groups that I’m not as familiar with, but belong to and am starting to check more often:
Rock Your Blog – This group is less about promotion and more about blog building and learning from each other.
Blog Engagement and Promotion Group – Another promotion group with daily and weekly threads.
Bloggers United – A blogger networking and promotion group.
Blogging Tribe – Another promotion group, but I’ve had a lot of fun with the way they do things too.
The Utah Bloggers – This is a group for bloggers just in Utah, but I’ll bet they have a group for your state too.
Yes, it can take me an hour or two to go through and promote to all of the groups I’m actively participating in (I don’t do every group every day, mostly the first few I listed above) but it’s worth it and I’ve seen a great improvement on not only page views and shares, but I’ve gained some fantastic and loyal readers out of it too. Some of those blogging group faces have become fabulous friends who’ve added me on Facebook and who continue to stop by and leave meaningful comments-it’s so worth it!
Do you have any Facebook groups you love?
How do you promote via Facebook?
The Better Your Blog Series is a series of posts written by myself, Angie of My So-Called Chaos, from my own personal experience as a long-time blogger, small-business owner, and as someone who’s worked with technology and customer service for many many years. They are written with the intent of sharing the knowledge I’ve acquired through years of practice and education (both self-taught and school-taught) with others in the blogging community.
In this collection of posts you’ll not only find tips for maintaining your blog, but also for anything that goes along with being a blogger and/or small business owner-like design tips and tutorials, social media, tools, and more.
The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.
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