I hear it quite a bit. "Well, I posted it on Facebook," some will say with frustration. "Didn't you see the Facebook post," others will say with annoyance. "I don't understand," others might say with confusion, "I posted it to the Facebook page, you didn't see it?"
So, I ask you… have YOU seen everything everyone in town has posted to Facebook? On every local related page? On every profile page of every person in town? In every Eagle Grove or Wright County related group? Of course you haven't. No one has. Ever. And you couldn't if you tried, even if you spent all your time trying. And that's not an accident – it's the way Facebook was designed.
Facebook operates on an algorithm. Not everything which is posted will automatically be shown to every person in their newsfeed. Many people are surprised to learn that, but it's true. As Google's top rated article on the subject, by industry experts Adspresso, puts it:
"The Facebook algorithm works by taking all the posts in a user’s network and ranking them based on what that user is most likely to engage with.
It boosts Facebook posts you’re likely to be interested in and hides the posts your behavior indicates you won’t engage with, then scores and ranks posts based on which posts will be most interesting to you."
From: https://adespresso.com/blog/facebook-algorithm/
So, Facebook actually hides some posts from each of us – and shows us others. That's how it works. It's a big game of hide and seek. And it's meant to keep you seeking, and seeking, and seeing ads all along. That's how they make money, plain and simple. Not just by showing you stuff, but by hiding stuff from you too.
And it gets worse. There's also been research that shows that Facebook tends to show you the content that is most engaging, which often means controversial, or political. So, if your post is not controversial, or otherwise "engaging", it's less likely to be shown to people. There's a great deal of coverage about this in the national media if you care to research it.
What about your totally non-controversial post to a Facebook group or page for your job? Or about the event you're going to? Or the activity that's being planned by your kid's teacher? Will those be hidden from people? You bet. In fact, that's just the sort of thing that's VERY likely to be hidden from a bunch of people you would want to see it. Assuming that they even happen to be looking in the right place, at the right time.
So, should you rely on Facebook to get information out? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you can't drum up some interest on Facebook. You can. If you post to Facebook you will reach some people, because Facebook will show that post to some people. But Facebook will also hide that post from some people. So objectively, posting to Facebook is worth doing, but it's a mistake to rely on Facebook, and Facebook alone, to get information out.
There's also the issue of competition for people's attention from the absolute flood of information on Facebook. Take just our neck of the woods for example. There are multiple Eagle Grove business and organization pages, as well as Eagle Grove and Wright County related pages and groups to keep track of. Each one a source of posts in its own right.
And that's just one of the social media sites. Who could possibly keep up? Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Not ever. Never have. Never will.
But here's some good news for you: you can still inform us here at the Eagle Grove Eagle of the things that you have going on as easily as ever. If you need to let us know about an event that's happening we should cover, just email me at news@eaglegroveeagle.com. If you need to get an ad in the paper, then email our sales team at sales@eaglegroveeagle.com.
You could even just email us the link to your post on Facebook. We won't mind. But we're not mind readers, you know. So, you know what to do.
