Let’s take out our magnifying glass and look deeper at the possible causes of a Facebook page spike.
Social Performance Measurement For Agencies
What Caused The Spike On My Facebook Page?
Tina Ahmed posted on 11 March 2015
One of the things every social media marketer is happy to see is a spike in the analytics. A spike in Facebook traffic gives you a good feeling, a feeling of a job well done. It can also be quite addictive as you see the result achieved and want to experience more frequent and larger spikes.
Before creating a plan for getting more growth and engagement spikes, it is important to try and understand how and why the spike came about in the first place. This can be difficult to do as there are countless reasons for a spike in traffic. In this article I will try and help you become better at analysing and identifying the main reasons for a spike. Knowing this will help you figure out what you can do to get great results more frequently.
7 most common causes of a Facebook page spike
Did a specific piece of your content cause the spike?
The first thing you can do is to try and isolate exactly what caused the spike. In many cases this could be a piece of content you have published. Can you identify a post that has achieved an unusually large reach or level of engagement? In Locowise you can view the “Content” section of your Facebook page stats and rank your posts by metrics such as number of impressions and number of engagements. If there’s no individual post that stands out, it might be that this new traffic has gone straight to the wall of your Facebook page.
Did an influencer share your content?
In some cases a spike could be caused by an influential user who discovered your content and shared it with his or her audience. Some people have very large audiences and if they share your Facebook post this could result in a rush of traffic coming your way. On the post that is causing the spike can you identify any users with a large audience engaging with the post? Click on “Share” to get a list of people and pages that have shared the specific post. Take a look at their profiles and pages to discover which of them have had good engagement by sharing your post.
Did you mention someone or did someone mention you?
Mentioning is a simple way of tagging someone into a conversation. If you mention a big page in your post, your post might have been displayed to the audience of that bigger page. On the other hand, if another page has mentioned you it could result in a large spike of organic traffic to your page. In your Facebook page “Activity Log” look into “Posts by others” to see a list of pages that have mentioned you. Click on the post to see what engagement there is.
Did a big website link to you?
Having an established website with a large audience embed or link to your Facebook content can result in very large spikes. One way to determine if this is the case is by looking at the referral sources of traffic to your Facebook page. Is there any referral source that stands out? Check this in “Insight” section of your Locowise Facebook page report in the “External Referrals” chart.
Have you been running an advertising campaign?
The most common spike you can get on your page is one caused by an advertising campaign. Since the decrease of organic Facebook page reach, advertising has become the most effective way of getting attention for yourself and your content. Spending a bit of money doing page post advertising on Facebook can get your content in front of a very large audience.
Have you covered a trending topic?
Facebook has tried to learn from the success of Twitter and has introduced trending topics that users see in the right hand sidebar. In some cases the topic of your post can be very timely and on trend, which could result in more people seeing your post and your page as they click to learn more.
Did you use a specific hashtag?
Hashtags can help spread your content further, especially if you use hashtags that are popular and have an audience of people checking them. If you did use a popular hashtag in your content, it could have helped get your content in front of a larger audience, which could have resulted in the spike in your reach and engagement.
Looking into the different areas described in this post takes a bit of detective work but can help you better understand the viral aspects of Facebook. This can give you some insights into how you can improve your content strategy and your promotional efforts in the future.
