When it comes to Facebook,
just shut up!

Todd Aaronson, President, Republic Marketing

Do you remember what you’re mom used to tell you? “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” The same philosophy can and should be applied to your Facebook postings, with a minor twist: what you say doesn’t always have to be nice necessarily, but it should always be valuable.

Too often businesses think of social media as an avenue to stay “top of mind.” With that as the guiding principle, these businesses and their social media managers will fall into the trap of saying something just for the sake of having a post out in space, because after all, that is how you stay top of mind – right?

Well, kind of.  Sure, at face value, if you haven’t posted in a day or two, and your goal is to stay top of mind, then logic would suggest that you should post something, anything, so that people are reminded of your presence.  But that is inherently the problem in viewing social media through the lens of creating awareness.  I would argue that you NEVER want to remind people of your presence, but rather ALWAYS want to remind people of your value. 
There are some instances in which your value is so entrenched into the psyche of the audience that merely establishing your presence accomplishes the purpose of value awareness, inherently.  But those instances are rare, for those few companies like Nike and Victoria’s Secret where they have solidified themselves as the brand that defines excellence in their industry, and their presence exudes value.

But for the rest of us middle of the roaders, every day should be an exercise in showing your value, not just showing your goods.  This is why social media managers need to shut up for a second!

There are three possible outcomes when you make a habit of posting content on Facebook that is not particularly valuable:

1. Your fans will be less likely to see your posts: The default setting for a user’s Facebook wall is to show “Top Stories.” Top stories are determined by an algorithm Facebook uses that basically determines how much a user likes a page’s content based on how much it interacts with that page’s content.  So if you regularly post content that your users are not interacting with (liking, commenting, sharing), your posts will fall lower and lower down that user’s wall in the default setting of “Top News” until it eventually stops showing up at all.  Fortunately, this is probably the least of your worries as some reports say over 50% of users do utilize the link that allows the user to see “Most Recent” stories on their wall.  But this is still potentially a large number of impressions you are losing out on by not being more diligent with producing more relevant content (for more on Facebook’s Top Stories algorithm, click here).
   
   
2. Your fans may unsubscribe from your posts: The “unsubscribe” is subtly different from an “unlike,” but for all intents and purposes is the same.  When a user unsubscribes from your posts, what they are doing is blocking your posts from showing up on their wall any longer.  They still “like” you technically, but the only way they will see your posts is if they make the effort to go to your page.  One benefit of the unsubscribe, as opposed to the all-out unlike, is that it still allows you to advertise directly to your fans, which the unsubscribed are still a part of.  But users are either unsubscribing because they no longer like you, and just don’t know the difference or don’t want to make the effort to officially “unlike” you on Facebook, or they still like you and want to reflect that on their page, but just don’t like what you post on Facebook.  Either way, take it as a sign that your Facebook presence has become a nuisance to their life, and you should reconsider the type of content you are posting, and how frequently you are posting it.
   
   
3. Your fans may “unlike” your page: See number 2 and just add on that they must REALLY be annoyed to make that extra effort to “unlike” your page.

There is a fourth outcome, that even if no action is taken, and you are getting “impressions,” those impressions are just over-looked and ignored because they have become accustomed to your irrelevant posts and no longer pay any attention to them.  At the end of the day, regardless of which outcome results, you have made yourself invisible. By posting irrelevant content with no value to your fans, with the goal of just posting something to stay top of mind, you have accomplished the exact opposite, and wasted resources in doing so.

So if you are going to make the time investment into using Facebook, it is only worth it if you are willing to budget the additional time it will require to follow a strategy that focuses on having users not just be aware of your brand, but more importantly, be engaged with it.