Today is all about the best Facebook methods for travel bloggers. My guest is Gary Griffiths and he is the founder and CEO of ThreeSides; a Facebook marketing agency that designs, creates, optimizes, and manages people’s Facebook marketing. In this episode, Gary shares great Facebook tips for travel bloggers!
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The Finer Details of Episode 43 with Gary Griffiths! In this episode Gary answers questions about Facebook for travel bloggers and shares some great strategies to increase engagement with Facebook organically and with a small budget.
In this episode you will learn that your success on Facebook really boils down to understanding your target audience and then posting relevant, engaging, educational and inspiring content. Bottom line: the more relevant, engaging, educational and inspiring the post the more it will be shared and the higher chance of it being shared by Facebook
Below are a few questions from me that Gary answers:
- Why is Facebook so difficult to grow these days? I feel like the only answer we get is algorhythm. Is there anything else?
- Is it better to share a post from your biz page to your personal page or post directly to both?
- Should people be using apps like “if this then that” to post to Facebook? What is your feeling about this?
- What are the best ways to use a email list within Facebook?
- Best way to create a look a like audience. What is the minimum # you need to do this? Alternatives if your list isn’t big enough?
I also asked travel bloggers in the The Aspiring Travel Writers Facebook Groups what they what questions they had about Facebook. Gary answers these questions and more on episode 43!
- Menorca Chaturvedi from EuropeDiarieseuropediaries.com asks: How do we really increase our post reach? Is there anything we can do without advertising? Of course, we have groups to post our content, but any other tips on how to improve the organic reach of our posts and give our pages more visibility?
- Nigel Kane from Bay Breezin’ Travel Blog asks: I was actually going to ask the same question as Menorca. Sometimes it’s hard to understand how some posts reach so many people compared to others. Can be anything between 30 to 300!
- Megan MacNee from travelingninetofiver.com asks: How do you get organic reach outside of your network. My page is about a month old and it’s growing but I feel like it’s mostly my friend and other bloggers. How do you get outside of your network.
- Teri Didjurgis from blueskytraveler.com asks: What increases post reach positively & negatively … Likes, comments (do comments carry more weight), posting from another platform ie instagram (is time delay a factor), shares, activity rate, time between posts or posts per day..if your account does or does not advertise… What else? I am also stumped by this algorithm other than pay to play which is what most say FB moved to about 6 mos ago
- Tahiri Kadyn asks: If certain days or times are better than others to post, such as when users most active.
- Chris Backe from One Weird Globe Asks: Have you been able to quantify / show how much impact third-party scheduling has on the reach of a post? (in other words, posting using Hootsuite vs. Facebook’s own scheduler)How often should you post on Facebook as a travel blogger?
Here are a few questions from the Business of Blogging Facebook Group which looks like it was started by Bret Love who is Co-Founder & Managing Director at Green Travel Media.
- Amanda Williams from the blog A Dangerous Business asks: People used to always tell you that using the “Boost” button on a FB post was terrible and that you should never do it (and that, instead, you should always build your ads in the Power Editor). But I’m curious if this is still the best advice, given the expanded targeting options Facebook now allows for both ads AND post boosts.
- Chris Backe from One Weird Globe asks: How would he spend a relatively small budget (say, $100) to promote a book? Assume you can target your audience specifically enough – would they go for likes, shares, clicks, etc.? (specifically his newest book on Prague for the “Choose a Way books”.
- Megan Kennedy from the blog WanderlustMegan asks: Tips to get the most value for your money while operating on a small budget.
- Andrew Eaton from Scrappy Geek.com agrees with Megan and wants to know for $20, $50, $100, $200 budgets. Where to put the money, how to target and get the most bang for your buck. Everyone talks about success from advertising (but point to large scale companies and big budget advertising). Realistic numbers for ‘small time bloggers’ would provide some great insight…
Episode Resources
Ignite Los Angeles Event
Tbex
Tropical Think Tank
Aspiring Travel Writer Facebook Group
If This Then That
Zapier
Buffer
Meet Edgar
Hootesuite
Business of Blogging Facebook Group
Green Travel Media
Chrome Browser
People Mentioned on this episode:
Nick Unsworth
Chris Ducker
John Lee Dumas
Bret Love
Jon Loomer
James Grandstaff
Connect With Gary
Gary Griffiths’ Website; ThreeSidesInc
Gary Griffiths on Twitter
Connect with Break Into Travel Writing
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
The Aspiring Travel Writer, the Facebook group
Hope you enjoyed this episode and please join me in thanking Gary for being here! And thank you as well. We’ll see you next time!
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I have all of these questions too about Facebook. I’m sure we all do now that it’s gotten harder to reach a good audience and to keep engagement high. It’s great and very generous of Gary to share his tips with us. I can definitely use some improvement.
Who doesn’t need help with Facebook? It seems to change all the time and could become a full-time job just learning how to adapt so I loved your podcast. I have subscribed and now have a ton of material to work through. Lucky for me I have a few long haul flights coming up so I plan to plug in and listen 🙂
I’d be very interested to know his and other people’s general opinions about maximising Facebook engagement and reach and of course across all the other social media platforms, particularly on Instagram and Twitter.
I love the BLOGGING (aka writing) part of blogging, but geesh is the social media aspect of it so hard to get the hang of (especially with it constantly changing)! I’ll def. use some of these tips to help me out as I continue to figure it all out!
Facebook is the one platform that I struggle with the most. I’ve never been able to grow a large audience. I’m not willing to pay for sponsored posts but I don’t see a way around it with the current set up of Facebook. Good questions.
Wish you featured his answers rather than the questions asked!Anyway, the podcast sounds interesting!
I’m hoping to have full transcripts of podcasts soon. Right now, it’s just too time consuming.
These are all great questions. When coming up with a facebook strategy, it is also important to take the time of year into account. Right now, I expect many people reach is down drastically… this is because a lot more people are buying advertising. After Christmas, it should return to ‘normal’.
This is a super informative podcast for us bloggers. Figuring out Facebook reach is so frustrating, with some posts reaching hundreds (even thousands) and others with less than 100. Gary’s advice is helpful and will certainly be put to practice as I continue to learn.
Thanks! Quite an eye opening podcast. Plenty of tips that can be implemented. I’ve never advertised on FB and didn’t know that you can target your ad/post using your email list.
Facebook definitely seems to be changing these days and it gets harder to reach out to people. These are some good questions to be answered. It’s great that people like Gary shares his tips with the rest of ut.
Thanks Patty! We enjoyed the Alberta mountain towns of Canmore and Banff. Abtueoslly gorgeous. Next month we are heading to Ontario, but early next year we are looking forward to beginning to explore the US starting with Oregon, then Colorado, and hopefully New Mexico. You know you are a great team if you can travel well together!