How many times have you been scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed and read a post or article that you agreed with, but just kept scrolling without dropping a like, share or comment?
If you’re anything like me, probably hundreds of times each week. Once I started managing social media channels, I discovered that I am any social media manager’s worst nightmare.
Why can’t I see the pages I enjoy most?
I am active on social channels and often see things from friends or businesses that I “like” in my mind, but never give it the official blue thumbs up. I just assumed it didn’t really matter if I followed through on showing the rest of the social media universe that I like something.
Then I started noticing that I wasn’t seeing posts from some of the pages that I enjoyed the most. Why? Because the Facebook algorithm thinks it knows what I want to see, and it tried to weed out everything that I wasn’t engaging with. It only was showing me posts from people and pages that it thought I engaged with the most.
What is engaging on social media?
You can help combat this in a simple way by engaging with posts on pages like Wisconsin Farm Bureau. Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm weights different types of engagement in different ways. For example, a “like” is assigned a small amount of value, because it is an action that has little depth. A “comment” shows that you are really interested in the topic and want to share your opinion, so that has a greater value assigned to it. A “share” is given the highest value because it shows that a user thinks the information is so important that all their friends should see it as well.
How you can support Farm Burea on social media
You may be realizing that it is important to be engaged on social media from a personal standpoint, so you can keep seeing the people and pages that you like most, but it is also important to be engaged as a Farm Bureau member.
Because you decided to read this blog, you more than likely have, at least, a slight interest in agriculture. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation Facebook page is loaded with great information about current events in the agriculture community, updates on WFBF projects and initiatives and shareable resources to help spread accurate agricultural information across social channels.
I’m sure many of you have seen a post about food or farming on Facebook that was inaccurate or flat out misleading. As people involved in agriculture, we need to be contributing to the conversations about our livelihood.
I have seen numerous agricultural organizations share pro-ag messages with negative comments to follow and not a single person will engage those folks in a conversation. You have the power to make a big difference. People want to hear from farmers and agriculturists because they trust another person, but it is more difficult to trust an organization that may appear to have an agenda. Your voice really matters.
Never underestimate the power you, as a single user, have on social channels. You don’t have to share every update you come across but challenge yourself to share or comment on more ag-related content. It can sometimes seem like the world of social media is filled with Negative Nellys, so let’s spread a little more positivity.
Written by Sarah Hetke.
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