Facebook, and the Impact on Readership

By Peter B. Giblett, 14th Feb 2012 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/x2kiqj_2/
Posted in Wikinut>Guides>Web>Social Networks

Facebook is a powerful website. With somewhere near a billion subscribers it is the largest on-line community in the world. If you are publicising anything then it is important to pay attention to the Facebook effect! Ignore it at your peril!

So you have Something to Say
Quality is a Part of it
All About the Number of Followers You Have
Number of Readers
The Facebook Effect!
The General Impact of Social Media

So you have Something to Say

You sit down and write your page, you get it off your chest. You brave soul, you have done it you have written your article. But what do you do now?

Well you want to publish it and have as wide a readership as possible, after all the more readers you get the more likely it is that you will be taken seriously as a writer, and additionally the more you are likely to earn from it. So what is the best way to gain readers?

This is an important question and the answer is somewhat a complex one. Here are some possible publication options:

All of these are possible options and can bring their own form of readers, but these days it is difficult to find that someone else publicises the site and does all the promotional work for your article. That would be great, but unlikely to happen.

If you write for Wikinut, Expertscolumn, or Triond (or any other content farm or syndication site) then your article is likely end up ranking higher on a Google search than if you publish it on your own blog but that is not the only answer as building a Google ranking takes time and a little patience. Professional journals also tend to rank highly on search engine results, but few pay any author for their contribution. The reason for publishing via higher ranking sites is that because that have more content added each day then your content is appreciated by Google's search bots and consequently ranks higher up the search results the next day.

"I have done all that, but my readership is still low!" I hear you and building readership is all important; precisely the point of this article.

Quality is a Part of it

Does an article need a visual component?

If you look at "Tips on How to Write a Better Page" by Johnny Dod you will discover that there are writers who care and those who just want to get something published.

Being a caring writer starts with researching your subject (even where it is a part of your expertise), and shows in the writing phase as you explain the challenge faced. It continues through the editing phase, because every writer makes mistakes either in spelling or logical flow of sentences or the overall article. You also need to think about providing links to other articles, especially those you have used as sources (even when they are your own) it is always good etiquette to acknowledge others and the contribution they have made. Then you need to think like the publisher.

Sometimes a picture can act like a thousand words at other times the words alone should be enough to convey the message clearly. Not every article needs a visual component to be good.

For those who just want to get something published then they will leave us like our boggle eyed cartoon character here, confused and possibly annoyed at wasting our time by reading the junk on offer.

The rest of this article assumes you have something worthwhile to talk about and have researched it well.

All About the Number of Followers You Have

Friends in this world

Go to Facebook or Twitter or Google Plus or any of the other sites that you are a member and think about the number of followers that you have on any site. What can you do to increase that number?

There is one basic fact that remains generally true - the more followers you have the more readers you get! But here is another important fact - Not every follower will listen to everything you have to say! Also sometimes you say something that every contact you have passes it on to everyone they have and you go viral with publicity going off the scales.

Most sites that you use today have an element of networking associated with them. When you go to most articles published in most locations then you will find a link to the author. Look on any of my pages and you will find "By Peter B. Giblett" or "Meet the Author" on there somewhere. If you find any articles that interest you anywhere it is always worthwhile clicking that link and following the author; chances are they will follow you back - happy to have a friend in the world.

Following has responsibilities in part this is about looking at the work of others and showing that you care. Press the "Like" button or add a comment. Much of building relationships to others depends on your personal level of activity, but again you cannot be active and reading every minute of every day, so a balance has to be reached.

In part you need to be a little more open with your on-line networking.

Number of Readers

Readership Graph

As can be seen by the graph shown here readership this is very much an up and down game and this is where a little experiment is worth mentioning.

This graph shows three distinct peaks above normal readership levels. This believe it or not is the Facebook effect in action. Proven and plotted!

The Facebook Effect!

Facebook

The Facebook effect happens when you publicise your article through Facebook and this bring a corresponding spike in readership. The graph above shows three distinct peaks these related to the days where this writer performed distinct experiments using Facebook. The first peak related to publicising a new article which was starting to gain readers, the second and third related to older articles being re-promoted with the aid of Facebook.

Trouble is typically the spikes in readership last 24 to 48 hours no more, unless you can tap into a subject of viral interest (and this study specifically avoided doing this because it was easier to measure).

The General Impact of Social Media

The study here focused specifically on Facebook but similar readership spikes are noticed whatever social platform you use as a publicity medium. Interesting eh? But think about how you can use this to improve the readership of your material.

Facebook is one of the worlds largest repositories of links and you need to put a link to your article there, yet there is often a benefit in having someone else publicise your article on your behalf. One of the benefits of Facebook is that anyone can click on the Facebook "Like" button on any page on the web, perhaps we all ought to do this a little more when we find something we like on the Internet.

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