Over the past couple of years, businesses on Facebook are seeing a marked decline in the organic reach on Facebook for their posts. Organic reach refers to how well your post performs without paying for it. So what prompted the changes to the Facebook algorithm and what can we as business owners, employees and marketers do to get our content viewed?
Meaningful Interactions
The intent behind this change was to give users more content from friends and family and fewer distractions from advertisements. Mark Zuckerberg said, “…the public content you see more will be held to the same standard. It should encourage meaningful interactions between people.” As a Facebook user, we can appreciate that. But as business owners and marketers, it creates a unique challenge. How do we get our posts seen by our audiences? Part of the answer lies with expanding your organic reach. The second part involves paying for advertising, which we will tackle in our next article.
Comments and comment replies
Pages and posts that receive comments and prompt conversations among friends will perform better than those that aren’t getting any comments. Ask your audience to respond to a question or write about topics that they’re sure to have an opinion on. Create a poll and have your audience vote on something- the packaging of your next product, the name of your next campaign, their thoughts on a current news topic… anything to get that audience interacting with your page.
Replies to comments are also really important. Post content that encourages people to tag their friends and engage in conversations. The Facebook algorithm definitely favors these types of interactions and will ultimately increase your reach.
Reactions and Shares
Posts that receive a ‘reaction’ (love, haha, wow, sad) see an increase in reach over those that receive just the standard ‘like.’ Additionally, when a post is shared, Facebook views that as a more ‘meaningful’ interaction that simply liking a post. Encourage your audience to share your posts. When someone shares your post, they expose your content to an entirely new audience.
Feature someone else’s content
Take advantage of the myriad of information available to you and feature an article that you found interesting. Not all of your content needs to be created by you. By tagging the author or company name where the article came from, you invite a new audience to look at your content.
Don’t be afraid to use video
In addition to being favored by the Facebook algorithm, posting video content is a fun, unique way to reach your audience. Offer a behind-the-scenes look at your business, show your product in action, or do a live video at your next event. The possibilities are endless! But make sure you have a plan first: follow these tips for using Facebook Live.
Utilize the Stories feature
Posting in Stories skips the algorithm altogether, meaning there is a better chance that your audience will see your post.
Pay attention to your analytics
As with anything, what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for all. Just because one business has great success using live videos doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right fit for your business. Try a wide variety of posts and see what works for your business. Facebook makes it easy to track your analytics (found in the “Insights” tab of your page information), so be sure to use it to your advantage.
Increasing your organic reach on Facebook may sound overwhelming, but it can also be fun! Experiment with different posts, images, polls, contests, videos and see what works. If you decide you don’t want to take on the challenge, give us a call and we can help!
Stay tuned for the follow up to this article about Facebook advertising and boosting posts.