Over the past two weeks I’ve been sharing Steemit content on Facebook and tracking engagement with my content. I thought 2 weeks is a good time frame to measure the engagement with my posts on my personal profile and share the results with everyone here!
If you guys are doing something different that has helped you increasing reactions, shares and comments to your steemit content shared on your facebook account, please let me know in the comments below.
Does Facebook Shadowban Exist?
Many months ago I read the post from @hilarski and at the time I remember sharing my content and getting zero engagement on it. Months later as I come back to writing after my accident I immediately started sharing my work on facebook and decided to share the results from my little experiment.
Please note: These are organic engagements. Not Paid Posts!
Most of my posts receive decent engagement on facebook. My friends are often supportive of my work, they share it, like it and recommend it to others. This has allowed me to leverage the content produced on steemit to a large extent.
Exciting Engagement Results
One of the days I decided to share @heiditravels' blog on crypto. Her easy to understand videos were very useful and a few friends thanked me for sharing it as it helped clear their concepts.
Way Forward
Recently, as I continued my efforts to promote Steemit amongst Indian users I got a young blogger friend @nirmal to join. Together, we run a popular and quickly growing cryptocurrency group on Facebook: CryptoHub: Bitcoin & Altcoin Assistant
These are the results from Nirmal's feedback upon using FB. As you can see the engagement and interaction is simply great. It got over a dozen people to sign up nearly the same day and over the past week I've reached out to @andrarchy several times in the day to speed up approvals for my friends and these bloggers willing to join steemit to share their content.
How can we forget the @steemfest announcement post by @roelandp. Many of my friends know about my participation at SteemFest and a few even indicated their interest in visitng Lisbon with me.
Ideas for Continuing Promotion
I've also shared my content on whatsapp groups, twitter and now I'm going to leverage Flipboard and paid promotion of Steemit content on the Steemit India fan page I've created.
I've also been sharing content on popular Steemit related Facebook groups:
I haven't had the chance to ask @cryptoctopus but I'm hoping to gain some insights from him so I can devise a marketing/promotional strategy to take my Steemit outreach in India to the next level.
In case you were wondering who will fund all this, I will do it with the earnings from my post as much possible. Ergo, I welcome your support towards my work on Steemit. It is much appreciated!
Thank you for your attention!
If you like my work, please share my posts and follow my blog to support me. You may also continue reading my recent posts which might interest you:
- This is My Plan for STEEMFEST 2017 + Slots Open for My Crew + Requesting Feedback!
- LetsTalk—Can We Be Brutally Honest Without Hurting People?
- Steemit Veni, Vidi, Vici! SteemFest 2016—Together, WE made it happen! Thank you Steemians!
- Ike's 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air (B&W) Photoshoot!
The post i shared on Facebook got 19 views and 11 likes. It's surprising for the like to view ratio to be so high. Normally they'd show the post to more people if it got so many likes.
I'm thinking for my next post to share an image. Those usually get views in the hundreds and should be less prone to any shadowban.
Yes, images get more views on text-posts, and this is why FB recommends doing image ads with little text content. The visual aspect of images is a supporting factor, and a short and simple added text on a great, eye-catching image can do wonders.
Because of this reason, an image has a greater chance to go viral!
Viral among people who aren't even interested in Steemit ... lot of good that'll do.
Images are great and get reactions but few times people will actually read it. With links the chances are greater. Therefore I post my content as a link. So it's easy for people to just click it and read it. Altho FB does limit the reach a lot!
Great work buddy, I see you daily trying to put an effort to increase the interest of people in steemit.
From Motvating people through steemit chat to writing great posts about steemit and your journeys.
Your every move is in a way directed towards increasing the interest of people on steemit.
Keep going like this. A lot of people from india will support steemit once they knew about it more.
Excellent job! Thanks for sharing the results of your endeavour with us all, it is inspiring and a great example on ways to get traction in the Steemit ouster spaces!
All for one and one for all! Namaste :)
Thank you so much for your continued support Eric! :) I hope to do more in the days to come! :)
First of all Facebook 'Shadow-Ban' , if something like that exists, isn't only for Steemit alone. Its for all other websites as well.
These days, all Fb wants is that their users should promote posts by boosting. So, their algo naturally limits the link posts that you decide to share.
But, I have found some workaround. Like you shared my post screenshot where I shared my intro post, it good some good likes, reactions and engagements right?
The secret to achieving that is 'AVOIDING THE LINK PREVIEW'. If you think you have got followers who likes to 'READ' your writings rather than 'VIEWING IMAGE' (link preview is nothing but showing an image or text-image), then better write the post on fb describing your Steemit article, and leave a link. When the link preview appears, close it.
You can do some trial and error testing find out more about it.
But sometimes, we do need previews, especially when I share some hot news (Like Reliance Jio Updates), I keep my link previews on. It still manages to get some attention, because of the 'weight' it carries. (Something similar to the steem power concept here).
Nevertheless, I am yet experimenting on Fb Algorithm. And will point out important updates to you, if I find any.
Lastly, thanks for promoting our Cryptocurrency group. ;)
Some great points there but in the past I've observed reach to be poor without preview. Not with Steemit but with other links. On my latest share (chevy car) I've got upto 46 reactions on the post. Link previews certainly gets your attention and in that its quite effective. Soon I'll start promotions on the India page and test things out there. :) You are welcome to provide your inputs if you have experiencing running FB ads. :)
Hmm. Cool.
And no, I don't have much experience in Fb Ads. However, if you really need any help, let me know, I can either forward your query to someone experienced and get back to you, or, I can bring someone to help you out. :)
There are a lot of people in blogosphere working on Fb Ads :)
Thats great! I've got help from the guy managing fb for Steemit but could also do with some help in the Indian context. Will let you know for sure. :)
Great article and very relevant towards my efforts lately as well. Here is what I am doing and learning about the whole Steemit to Facebook game. Maybe it will encourage those concerned with post engagements.
Recently I created a page for Steemit users myself called Steemit Blogger Central. The concept is pretty simple, RESTEEM users posts in order to help the community get more exposure from mainstreamers and to connect other users to them. The page as well is a slight Trojan Horse concept to use the mainstream social media site to gain new sign ups for Steemit under their nose. So far so great on my end. Every day its growing, still small but engagements are increasing every hour on the hour. Where I started with a few post reaches its now an average of a 100 or so a post. Now in this area I also run a popular horror page for a decade there that has 20K LIKES and engagement is a double edged sword with Facebook because they downplay reaches in order to get you wanting to pay for their highly over priced ad campaigns. I use them now and then but there is tricks around there algorithm downplays for post reaches.
What you have to do is be selective in the amount of posting you do a day. I found if you constantly post a few an hour your reaches will halt a lot. So to get around this I have always been active in facebook groups. I will use my personal page to take Steemit Blogger Central and reshare my posts to relevant groups. This in turn increases reaches and tends to open up the system some to fight the downplays in place. Why I have no clue but seems to work because my horror page users seems to never miss a post to this day and without boosting my posts.
All in all, using the social media platforms is a great tactic for growth here, we just have to work around the systems and keep vigilant to use them to our advantage. Keep up the great work my friend, glad I am not alone in doing this lately.
If your curious my pages are on Facebook and Twitter for you to check out:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/steemitbc/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/steemitbc
Just remember they view our pages as a way for them to make money, gotta keep promoting them in order to not feed the machine.
Those are some interesting findings and strategy that you use. Thank you. I'll post a follow up to this after a month or so of testing and see how it plays out in the interim! Thank you for reading and your detailed comment. :)
I found along the way letting the automated system work for you engagements is always with brick walls when it comes to Facebook. Putting the foot to the floor kind of pushes out there so people can see your posts is always effective. Takes a lot of extra effort but it engages people for some reason to keep swinging by to check your stuff. Key is to get them to feel use for the page and keep a flow of communication going. Give it a shot, let me know how it goes for you. Seems so far to be working for me, every day its getting more and more hectic with Steemit Blogger Central lol....anything that can keep me from feeding that FB ad machine is a blessing. All the best, really appreciate what your doing for the community
I'm too embarrassed to link my friends to the loony bin that is Steemit. If I link them now and they see the mindnumbing conspiracy theories, butthurt drama, scammy shitposts and crypto circlejerk trending, Steemit will forever leave a horrible impression on their minds.
Waiting for Communities and a more mature and sensible Steemit before I can start doing that.
Haha! :D Well I can understand your sentiments. Im sure things will change but like yourself Im sick of the circlejerk trending and bots voting for users all the time. The new ones joining feel they will never make it anywhere.
I just started promoting on Twitter and Facebook. I have gotten 36 link clicks on Twitter and 5 link clicks on Facebook in just 2 days of sharing Steemit Posts on those networks.
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Oh wow that's pretty cool! I dont have a lot of followers on Twitter. Im not too active there so even as I got some traction on Twitter it wasnt substantial enough to write about it.
I just started to use the Twitter myself, it is so easy to build an audience there and I guess Steemit even likes twitter more than Facebook as the @twitterbot confirms post shared on Twitter, no bot for Facebook.
I am buying traffic to my page on Twitter already. Your post that I shared already had 8 link click.
That's quite great! Would you mind sharing what service you use to buy traffic to twitter here or on steemit.chat dm. Thanks
Oh God, how I'd love to see Facebook finally go down. Now it seems more and more likely.
haha! I hope so too! I've wasted so many precious hours on it :(
Wow! talk about promoting steemit. I've been thinking about something similar. I guess my only hiccup is finding an audience of people who also have steem and an interest in crypto. It will be interesting to see in the future the integration and ease of sharing through steem. thanks for the experiment. I'm glad people are actually carrying out experiments i want to see happen keep it up.
Definitely giving you a follow!
Thank you so much for the support! I hope to post a follow up in the future for sure. :)
I hate to open my Facebook site now. Steemit has spoiled me something terrible. It's dead. Flat. Colorless. Just awful. I'm posting Steemit links on Facebook but it's like it's from another planet or something. If I put a picture of dog jumping through a hoop I'll get 150 likes. If I put a Steemit link about the crypto currency explosion... 0
Hmmm. maybe that's what I could do, post some silly dilly thing as a link to Steemit.... Once they're there maybe "the horse will take a drink."
I'll keep plugging way at it and try to see how to break the ice... People just don't seem to get it. Even people who consider themselves "awake." ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
1 person signed on and is taking part. another person signed on but is actually superstitious.... this is the mark of the beast? Another person asked a question... But really no significant response....
The world needs steemit , xasbook is a tool of control and ,censorship and people are waking up to this fact . The future is STEEMIT !
I shared stuff from steemit on a regular basis until January. Then I had to take a forced break from everything. In 4 months things have changed a fair bit. I guess you have to keep trying and that might get your friends interested in crypto :)
Thanks. I'm just reposting the Steemit posts. I tried saying something about the community but it was like talking to the wall. So I'll just keep reposting Steemit stuff. If they don't get it what can be done? But the Facebook platform seems so flat and dead to me now. It's like there is a part of their brains that's dead.
Yeah thats true!
Great article. I've been wary about posting on FB for fear of annoying people with all my crypto posts...but hey why not, if they don't want to see it they don't have to follow.
Absolutely right! However, many people now are very interested in cryptocurrencies. It will certainly interest them. Your friends are likely to follow your work anyways. :)
Interesting observation. Nirmal is a friend of mine for couple of years on FB, and i could say that he is very bright! Cheers.
Yes @nirmal is a bright young chap! :) Thanks for reading!
Facebook has less value for me!!! steem is the future and I will do my part in promoting it to the world and thus help in its success. The future is here isnt it?
Absolutely and it is left upto each one of us to do our part now!
Way to go! Thanks for promoting Steemit!
Im happy to! Thank you for following my work and for your feedback. :)
Great work! This kind of self-funding research benefits all of us!
insight info....nice...wish to get more....
Oh my freaking Fuck. You asshole. You're getting those results based on having already had the goddamn audience. You're the absolute worst kind of SHIT!!!