What do you need to be popular on Facebook? Well, you need to have a lot of friends, that’s for sure.
I read recently an article on islandcrisis.net, which made me think of my friends on Facebook and my other friends on Facebook, including me, which are not that popular as the first category. According to this site, there has been a study in which over one million popular posts were monitored to see what are is the behaviour of the friends of those people when they post something on the network.
Here’s what the study revealed. First of all, the popularity of a post on Facebook is strongly connected to the popularity from the real life of a person. If that person is not very popular in real life and has let’s say five friends, well on Facebook she or he might have 500 friends, but those 5 real friends will comment more on her or his statuses.
For example, the popularity of a post is directly influenced by the period of the day in which the messages are written, by the person who writes them, by the words used in it, by the verbs used in it and by the number of words. These are just a few criteria used by the researchers.
The study showed that the messages written in the morning or very late at night are gathering the higher number of “Likes” and comments. But there is something to add here. For example, the posts speaking about leisure activities are more popular at night, than in the morning time and the phrases which refer to “them” or “you” are also more popular than the ones in which the subject of the phrase is written in the first person.
The verbs used in past-tense are less popular than the ones that talk about future and present. Also, the posts telling about family and relatives don’t encourage no one to “Like” them. Perhaps, if we are talking about your friends. Maybe they will like a picture with your new pet, but this picture is doomed to not attract many “Likes” from the start.
Constant updates about someone’s work or family are also not very popular. Don’t forget that here we are discussing about normal people, like you and me, who happen to have more friends online, which can reach the number of 5000, the limit imposed by Facebook. If we are refrring to an international artist, well that one can hit the “.” and share this with the others and he or she will receive about 1000 likes and about 5000 comments, all because of a point.
At the beginning of this article I said that I myself verified the behaviour of some people in my network. For example, I am “friend” with a writer, who updates us all the time with the fact that he lanuched a new book. Ok, I got it from the first time. There is no need to tell me that your book was released. Eventually I guess I will let it loose, because I prefer to see something intersting in my news feed than that guy who over and over keeps telling us, to his “friends”, that his book is ready. He has more than 5000 friends, that’s why he even created a page on Facebook, where he also has more than 5000 fans.
He wrote a single book in his lifetime, or at least a single book was published until now, and now, when he had finished the second one, he doesn’t stop by announcing us this. I forgot to mention that the second book of his is not yet published. It is only written and ready for printing.
I wanted to say this, because I am sure that this man doesn’t know all his “friends”. I am sure that he doesn’t know me, nor most of the people in that list, still he is very popular when it comes to statuses and posts. What made him to be so popular? The fact that among his statuses about his new book (did I mention that he has a new book?), he knows how to make himself lovable, which by the way I respect. He shares with us, the public of his first and only book until now, the thrill of new discoveries and new worlds.
This is what makes a man popular on Facebook. If you want to sell something, make sure you don’t say all the time Buy this book, Buy this book, but also share some of your knowledge with your friends.
The study revealed that posts about food were not that popular on Facebook, like the posts from music let’s say. The updates related to positive emotions are more popular than the ones related to negative emotions. The first person posts are popular only when they are used with present-tense verbs and also with cognitive processes. For example, I know…. I like… I enjoy…., but not I drink or She wore a blue dress…, with an exception. It depends who is “She”. If She is a high-rated actress from Hollywood, then that post is very likely to get 57672198 likes and 764618179 comments.
These are the main rules for being a popular person on Facebook. The main which I manage to take after this study is that you have to share: photos, videos, articles you name it, everything in order to show the persons which follows you (oo, no, that is on Twitter), the persons that are your friends that you care about them and your opinion is important to you. This is also why we write such articles and why we share information like this with you people. Because we believe that sharing is the future. No computer would ever been created, no smartphone, no operating system, if it weren’t the desire of people for communications. So, don’t ever stop talking, smiling and thinking! You’re doing it perfectly.
