How to Reach a Bigger Facebook Audience

 Organic reach numbers are decreasing on Facebook business pages all over the country because of the updated Facebook News Feed algorithm. Simply, the new algorithm cuts down the amount of posts that a user receives in his/her News Feed. It’s great for the user, but at the same time prevents some information that your Region might post from getting to your usual target audience. 

What is organic reach? 

Organic reach is the number of people who saw your Region’s post through unpaid circulation. Paid reach is the number of people who saw your Region’s post as a result of Facebook ads.

 

How to get more people to like your page

In a “like” driven world, getting more people to give their stamp of “like” approval on your page is hard. Below are just five things that I recommend trying when you’re looking to get more likes on your Region’s Facebook page.

1.    Be consistent
Try to post on your Region’s Facebook page at least once a week, so your page is always fresh with new information. Don’t leave a stale page, it’s the worst advertisement for a Region!

2.    Use pictures and lots of them
There is a reason why platforms like Instagram and Pinterest do so well in the social media realm. They use photos! On Facebook, pictures tend to be the most shared of all posts and you can really say 1000 words with the tap of an upload. Plus, people love to see their kids, so if you have pictures from the games, use them! 

Important Tip: Share the Password

More and more AYSO Regions and Areas are taking advantage of useful social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These sites can be great advertising for Regions, and help you reach potential families and volunteers you otherwise would not have access to.

If your Region utilizes social media, make sure that more than one person has access to the social media login information. While it's a good idea to have one person take ownership of the social media responsibilities, it's also smart to make sure that at least one other person has the administrative login privileges.

Facebook to Debut New News Feed

According to AllFacebook.com, Facebook will debut a new News Feed (say that five times fast!) pretty soon. The News Feed redesign (pictured above) will bring the mobile Facebook experience and the desktop Facebook experience closer together, by focusing on imagery and changing the font.

How will this affect your Region's page?

How to Make Your Instagram Photos Speak

We've all heard the old cliche: a picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to Instagram, a picture may be a worth new player and volunteer registrations.

So outside of taking great photos, picking the perfect filter and adding a snappy caption (find info on all that here), how can you make your Instagram photos say what you want them to say? The answer is simple: add words!

What Makes a Succesful Facebook Page

When it comes to creating a successful Facebook presence for your AYSO Region, a lot of thing are in play. How frequently you post images, how responsive you are to your Facebook fans, and a variety of other factors.

Social marketing company Wishpond recently did a study on what makes a successful page. Here's what they found:

Social Media at the AYSO EXPOs

It's almost January, which means it's nearly AYSO EXPO season!

If you haven't heard the news, AYSO Section Meetings have been revamped and revitalized; hence the new name. And this year, I'm happy to report that a social media course will be at every single EXPO location!

Also, for the more seasoned social media people out there, I've been working on an advanced social media course that I will personally be teaching at select locations (as of now, it's Section 6 and the big EXPO in Las Vegas) so if you've taken my webinar before, this advanced course would be the perfect next step for you.

Learn more about AYSO EXPO and register for yours here.

See you there!

Do You Have a 5-Star Region?

Facebook is rolling out another fun new feature for its business pages: ratings! Much like the popular ratings-driven site Yelp, Facebook ratings allows visitors to rate your company with a star rating, from 1 to 5 (see example below).

How do you activate this feature? Simply put in your Region’s address information under Page Info and check the provided box, and that will allow visitors to your Facebook page to rate you. Users can also leave comments with their ratings and “check-in” to your Region, which is a way of sharing with their friends that they were on your fields, participating in an game/event.

Updated: Social Media Webinar Includes New Features

Next week, I'll be hosting the webinar "Social Media 101: Using Facebook and Twitter to Increase Registration." If you haven't already taken this webinar, it's a great way to become more familiar with these social media and learn how they can help your Region succeed.

If you have already taken this webinar, now is a great time to re-take it! With all the recent changes to Facebook and Twitter, the webinar is revamped with a lot of new info and best practices (not to mention exclusive details on all of the new Facebook features).

It's happening Wednesday, Oct. 16, at 6:00 p.m., PT. Join me! Sign up here.

Facebook Updates User Guidelines

Facebook announced today they’ve updated their user guidelines and will no longer require that Facebook promotions be administered through third-party applications.

What does this mean? If you want to have a contest on your Facebook page, you don’t have to pay a Facebook-app company to create and administer it for you. Which is a huge time and money saver.

This means you can upload a photo to your Region’s Facebook page and ask people to leave comments, like or share to enter to win a prize. Many of you may have not known functions like this were illegal. They were! And if Facebook would’ve come across posts like this in the past, your page would have been in danger of getting deleted.

How to Embed Your Facebook Posts

Facebook has debuted another fun new feature: post embedding. Embedded Facebook posts will allow you to take a post from your Region's Facebook page (or AYSO's National Facebook page) and embed it on a website, blog and more.

Once the post is embedded, users will be able to view the post anywhere you embed it, and engage with it by sharing, liking or leaving a comment. The above is a preview of what an embedded Facebook post looks like.

Embedding your Facebook posts on other websites is a great way to get your community engaged with your Region and drive valuable traffic to your Facebook page. Here's why:

How Does Your Facebook Cover Image Look?

Since Facebook completely re-designed its profiles into timelines, the Facebook cover image has the focal point of every FB Business Page.

The cover image is the large rectangular image (the smaller inset square image is the profile photo).

In my time looking at Region Facebook pages, I’ve seen everything from really great cover images to blurry or blank images. Here are a few ways to make sure your Region’s Facebook page has a great cover image.

New: Facebook Hashtags!

Twitter hashtags are one of the major reasons the social media platform has experienced so much success. If you've been reading this blog regularly, you may have seen my post on how Twitter hashtags work.

In a nutshell,hashtags are Twitter’s way of making their user-generated content searchable and conversational. If you want your tweet to be discovered by others tweeting about similar things, all you have to do is add a hashtag.

Well, Facebook felt a little left out of the hashtag fun and has recently announced that they have added hashtag capability!

Does Your Region Have the Right Type of Facebook Page?

I spend a lot of time talking to RCs and Webmasters regarding social media best practices – especially about Facebook.

I get a lot of questions: How often should I post? What if someone posts something bad on my page? How can I keep up with a Region website AND a Facebook page?

But, before answering any of that, I always ask the person: What type of Facebook page do you have? Because if you don’t have the right type of page, you can be stopped before you even start.

All AYSO Regions, Areas and Sections should have a Facebook Business Page. If your Region has a personal profile, Group Page or Community Page, you do not have the correct type of Page.

Here’s why:

How to Advertise Your Facebook Posts

If your Region has a modest Facebook following, it may not make the most sense to invest a lot of time and money in a comprehensive Facebook advertising plan. But, if you have an upcoming registration event, tournament or fundraising opportunity that you'd like to promote, Facebook's single-post advertising could work wonders.

After posting a photo, video or status update on Facebook, you'll see a button at the bottom of the post that says "Get More Reach" as pictured above. Click on this and you'll see how you can promote just this post on Facebook, either just to your fans or to your fans and their friends.

What Social Media Can Do for Your Region's Sponsors

Once you build a sizable and engaged social media audience (for a typical-sized Region, I would say this is about 300 Facebook and/or Twitter followers), your online presence can be a useful asset to your Region’s local sponsors.

Whether you’re trying to please your current sponsors, or looking to bag a few new ones, here are a few ways to use social media to promote your Region’s sponsors (or potential sponsors).

Increase Facebook Engagement with Images

The Webmaster Info Spot has been on a roll lately with informative posts on using/editing photos. To cap off the unofficial series, I wanted to share this good-to-know tidbit of Facebook advice:

Posts with images will receive higher engagement than posts without.

AllFacebook.com did some research, and they discovered that “images have been the No.1 driver of engagement on a page since timeline launched.” That means that images beat out links, videos and text-only status updates for the top spot. And this means that images catch the eye of your Facebook fans more than anything else.

“Posts including a photo album or a picture can generate two times more engagement than other post types,” reports AllFacebook.com

SUPER Simple Photo Editing

For the more experienced Webmaster, you probably have a photo editing tool/software that you know and love. For those on the more inexperienced side, like myself, (I try to stick to writing, editing and social media), we need a simple, easy-to-use photo editor that can get the basic things done quickly.

If I ever need to quickly edit a photo for a Facebook post, inclusion in an e-newsletter, etc., I usually hop on

Planning Social Media Promotions for 2014

As you know, AYSO turns 50 next year, and the National Office is busily getting ready for the celebration and all its festivities. 

Have you started thinking of ways to modify your Region's website and social media presence on our Golden Anniversary? Here a couple easy ideas:

Brand New Facebook Tools Now Available

The AYSO National Office wants to help make running your Region's Facebook page as fun and easy-to-manage as possible, so we've added a new section to AYSO's Region Toolkit called Facebook Tools.

Featured in the new section are tools to make your Region's Facebook page interesting, interactive and consistent with AYSO's national branding campaigns.

It includes...