Hi all!
I decided a few weeks ago to start posting daily on my Facebook page to see if it helped my reach and to drive traffic to my shop. Not every post was to be something I listed; The posts were to be as varied as possible with some things that were just experiments and others that were pix from my garden or gifts for other people.
My reach was up to 300 after doing this for two weeks and although I had no new followers I was feeling pretty happy about things, then five days ago one person (just one) hid just one of my posts. I canāt think why as it was just a pair of earrings, no mention of anything controversial and nothing offensive in any way. Since then my reach has collapsed to 20 and most of my followers are not seeing any of my posts at all.
I donāt like to whinge about this on Facebook itself, but it just seems so unfair that one person can inadvertently cause the whole thing to collapse like a house of cards. Most people on FB probably donāt realize that just hiding one post can do this.
So what to do? I need to post my pix somewhere to let my real friends (who are usually my customers anyway) know what Iāve made or everything dies. But FB just seems to be poison for me at the moment.
Love Sam x
I didnāt realise this happened.
I would just carry on posting on fb. Sometimes my reach is big (in the hundreds) and then other times very low (less than 10). I can never fathom out why so I just carry on. If it was an important post that had low views I just find another way of saying the same thing.
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I donāt know what to do with facebook either but it does occasionally get me a commission or direct sale so I persist. I normally (at best) post twice a week as I donāt want to be clogging up peopleās feeds and if Iām posting something with a picture I get between 200-300 views, less if no pictures, from my 91 followers (managed to get over 700 when British Crafters shared a post!). I had a look at your page any maybe the person who hid the post was suffering from earring fatigue - I know the challenge is to make a pair a day but maybe save a few pairs up and do a group shot for one post and then you could do posts about a necklace instead for a bit of variety. I put pictures of unset stones or beads up and say that I canāt decide what to make next and ask for their favourite from the photo - which ever gets the most comments gets turned into something which I can then put into another post later in the week.
I watched you open your cookson parcel - aaaah the joy of a cookson parcel, although I could gripe about bullion dealers for a while having had problems with both cooksons and rashbels recently. You might want to change suppliers for copper sheet - I get mine on ebay, its electronics grade (heavy metal free) and significantly cheaper. (not sure if it would be suitable for kiln fired enamelling though but I canāt see why not, its fine for soldering, hammering the life out of and I would always clean the surface before adding a patina anyway)
Sasha
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Are you in any groups on facebook? I share my posts (only the posts with an item for sale in) in handmade and knitting groups. My reach is currently just under 20,000 and I only have just over 2,000 likers. I had someone hide a post the other day but it didnāt seem to affect my reach.
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How do you know if someone hides a post? Does fb tell you?
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I didnāt know people could tell when you hid their posts! When I get loads of craft-based postings on my personal page, I sometimes hide them and click āSee fewer posts like thisā! This is not personal, itās just because I want to see mainly posts from my friends and family when I lookā¦ Sorry!..
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Hi all, I also noticed that my last few posts were not reaching all my ālikesā. I asked on my personal FB page if friends who had liked my ācheeky biscuitā page weāre seeing those posts and it seems not! Apparently Facebook has become very selective on who gets to see ābusiness pageā posts and who doesnāt and I donāt think it has anything to do with people hiding your posts.
A friend who works in IT told me that FB now wants business pages to pay to have their posts published to everyone. If you pay to sponsor your post you can then select who you want to see it.
I have no idea how to get around this Iām afraid!
Another friend told me she had seen this on other craft pages:
Hi to all my Facebook followers 
did you know that facebook limits business posts popping up on your Facebook newsfeed unless I pay facebook money 
. Apparently facebook likes a bit of Facebook advertising on facebook tho and the more times a Facebook post says facebook in it the more facebook will let it pop up on your Facebook feed 
thought Iād give it a try so how many of you facebookers can see this facebook post on your Facebook feed give me a 
I donāt know if this works though as I havenāt tried it!
Sorry for the mammoth post, I hope it all makes sense.
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I know exactly what you mean. I donāt follow any of the pages I like but I have them all in an interest list. This means they donāt show in my newsfeed but if I click on my list then I see all the posts.
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The whole point about Facebook is that it is geared to what the end user wants (i.e. the person) and not the business.
So one explanation could be someone who was used to seeing your posts but didnāt necessarily interact with them (like them, comment etc) had also liked a couple of other pages, and may have liked a post or commented on those new pages.
Now FB thinks your friend views those other pages more highly than yours, and because FB tries to limit the number of posts one person sees (because it doesnāt want that person to get overwhelmed with some many posts that they end up leaving FB altogether), your posts are suddenly seen less and less.
If that scenario happens across a number of your followers, then that could account for a drop in reach figures.
But Iād also add, Iāve heard of some people seeing their reach figures plummet, and yet a higher number of people than the reach figures suggest exist have actually commented on the post. So I think sometimes the figures just arenāt true.
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I think the message posted about using Facebook a number of times in a post works because the people who read the post then often like it and comment back things like - āMe tooā, āfunny old FBā, āheās hiding my posts tooāā type comments.
FB uses a computer generated set of logic to decide how posts are distributed in someone elseās newsfeed, so the most basic ways of doing this are for people to like, comment or interact in some other way. Itās not using the word Facebook in your post that ends up influencing the algorithm but just the fact more people are stopping to read the post and interacting.
If you posted something that included the word Jelly, which made everyone stop, read and interact, then that would also influence the algorithm. So its not the actual letters being typed, but the reactions other have to your post, and FBās logic is able to measure length of time people read it (because the logic can detect when words are being scrolled, if they are static in the middle of a page, FB presumes that is because the words are being read), the number of times the like button is pressed and the number of times the comments box has characters typed in.
Itās fascinating stuff! 
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In addition to the above, FB is constantly asking itās users what they want to see in their newsfeed in order to show them only posts they are interested in. If you have used Like ladders, or Like for Like, or even some other networking pages, if people have only liked and commented in order to get that back in return, itāll damage your reach because they will be unlikely to keep engaging with you after that. We canāt see all the pages we have liked or our newsfeed would take us forever to read through, so FB chooses which posts to show people, and thatāll be the ones people naturally engage with.
I find it hard occasionally too, but I do boost posts every now and then for Ā£2 to ensure the posts that are important reach the intended people.
Thereās more info on FB pages here incl growing your audience:
https://www.facebook.com/help/492935104056753/
https://www.facebook.com/help/427625487255721
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It is possible that the person who hid the post did it by mistake. I often hit the wrong button especially when Iām on the phone. I didnāt know you can tell that a post has been hidden though - did you get a notify ?
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Itās under āInsightsā then āReachā then scroll down to see āHide, Report as Spam and Unlikesā.
Iāve got a feeling that some āHide post/all postsā are from other pages that have come over, āLikedā my page and then left a āHi I liked your page, come over and Like mineā kind of thing.
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Thanks Liz, I rarely think to check my insights and they are quite interesting.
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That is really interesting @Textiletreasure! This would account for the fact that posts with fewer words and also videos get a higher reach. People will watch to the end of a video if its not too long and if you donāt have much text it assumes the reader is not scrolling-Ha! I donāt think mentioning FBās name works on its own so I am sure you are right about it causing people to react and the algorithms picking that up. Fascinating stuff 
Love Sam x
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Thatās another good reason for not āexchanging likes,ā then @BigBirdLittleBird. Iāve never liked playing that game!
Love Sam x
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I thought that too @JOYSofGLASS, because Iāve nearly hit the button by mistake as well. I would never do that intentionally to a small businessās post and it is a tad annoying that FB make it easy to do by mistake.
Love Sam x
Iām not in any groups at the moment @Knittingtopia-It seems to work very well for you so it might be something to consider
Love Sam x
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Thanks @SashaGarrett-People did seem to like the parcel opening one-I thought that it would be quite good as I had lots of different things. Usually my parcels contain .8 mm wire, .6 mm wire etc.
My Mum did say I should be careful not to bore people with the earrings thing, but I did want to make myself actually do some work and my pendants and necklaces tend to get a bit fiddly and long winded. Thatās my excuse anyway.
Thanks for the advice about E-bay. There are lots of good suppliers on there that are worth sticking to when you find them so I daresay Iāll have a look. The copper is for something in particular so it didnāt seem too expensive for a one-off, especially when I took the dreaded delivery fees into account.
Iām hoping to be back to posting twice a week after the Easter hols so maybe it will have settled down again by then (and I will also be in the habit of working and I will have stuff to show for it too). The good news is my last post was back up to 52 views which seems reasonably healthy, so whatever caused the slump could just have been temporary.
Love Sam x
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Given the amount of copper and aluminium I use for cuffs I need it to come in reasonably large sheets (ideally 6 inches wide) at a decent price - Cooksons failed on both counts, my local hardware store had supply issues so I turned to ebay. If you start doing more copper work and want to know who I use then let me know and Iāll send you the link.
Sasha
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