How to get more page views on Facebook

By A.F. Stewart

A few months ago, I participated in an event on Facebook, organized by an author friend of mine. It was a marketing brainstorming session, authors getting together, bouncing ideas off each other, asking questions, sharing tips on book promotion. One of the questions asked was about the number of views received by an average post on a Facebook page.

Now to be honest, my Facebook pages were neglected things at this point. From time to time, I posted status updates, bits of news, and my Twitter feed, but mostly they sat there like a lump. So when I checked the stats to answer the question they weren’t good. Most of what I posted were links, tweets, or shares and it averaged to about five to 10 views per post, with few or no shares or likes. Not great stats.

Experiment yields insights

So I ran an experiment, to see what types of posts would get better views, or if my Facebook fans just weren’t paying attention to my page. I started posting non-link posts: writing tips, book updates, some humorous musings, and leading up to my book launch, story trivia.

Now here’s the interesting part. For those non-links posts I saw my stats jump to about 50 to 70 views per post, and one post where I laughed about a typo I made hit 93 views. Also, the likes, comments, and shares for these posts rose as well. Even the posts that were just links saw a slight rise in views after I began interacting more on my Facebook page.

Funny posts worked well

Of course, some types of posts did better stat-wise than others. Goofy or funny posts were popular, the book trivia was liked, and both pirates and Joss Whedon’s Firefly hit high notes. Plus, my page’s weekly total reach climbed considerably, with numbers ranging from 27 to 141 views in July to a more consistent 300 to 400 range in October.

Of course, my experiment may not be very scientific, but I think it is illuminating. It illustrates that people, and potential readers, respond better to a more personal touch, as opposed to getting links and shares thrown at them. The key to a better Facebook page is put the “social” back into social networking.

What’s working for you on Facebook?