Last week, prior to leaving for Ireland to run a photo tour, I uploaded an image to my Facebook business page - Robert Canis Photography. While away I took a quick look to see if there was any interest and saw that it had received more than 3k Likes and, literally, hundreds of comments! Prior to this, the best case would be circa 200 and knowing that in order to increase visibility you are obliged to Boost your post through payment I was (and still am) a little perplexed about how a single photo can generate so many likes. OK, it's quite a nice image but nothing earth-shattering and to go from 200 to what is now 8.5k with 441 comments is bewildering!
My understanding of FB's algorithm is that it's important to keep discussions within the post active, to avoid links and to ask the 'audience' questions. I haven't done either, particularly, and the cynic in me is wondering what Facebook is up to. :) Furthermore, yesterday I uploaded another autumn woodland photo and the same is happening where Likes currently stand at 4k and with 90+ comments. Please, I am not after back-slapping or a standing ovation, I take anything to do with social media with a pinch of salt and, to me, such numbers are meaningless unless it translates to website clicks leading to workshop bookings, print sales and mailing list subscriptions, of which as far as the latter is concerned, has been just two! I'll continue to take it for what it is but I would be very interested to hear from anyone who reads this (I am forever hopeful that it is more than 2) who can, perhaps, shed some light on this short-term phenomenon.
