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Expert Feature: Is Your Facebook Page Losing Its Organic Reach?

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When Facebook started offering promoted posts that could be served to more people for a fee, businesses noticed the number of people who saw their Facebook page updates was falling.

The reason?

Facebook now decides what users want to see and will serve up more of that content plus anything they were paid to serve.

In spite of objections from businesses and users, Facebook continues to push for the “pay to play” model.

They will, however, serve your posts to users for free if the users ask for your content.

The key to increasing your organic reach is getting your readers to teach Facebook that they want to see your page.

Here’s how:

Sharing Concept Red Marker

 

Shareable Content

Shared content is a signal to Facebook that the reader really likes what the business’s Facebook page is posting.

Facebook responds by serving up a higher percentage of updates from that page to that individual user.

Sharing also gets your content in front of more people faster than any other delivery method.

For example, if one person shares your post, 100 of that person’s connections might see the post.

Let’s say that of those 100 people, four of them share the post, putting it in front of another 400 people.

That’s 500 people that saw your content in a matter of minutes and organic reach at its best.

So, what makes content shareable?

People like visual content.

They are more likely to have an emotional reaction to posts with pictures or video and want to share your post with their friends.

In fact, videos are 12 times more likely to be shared than links and text posts combined.

If you want your readers to share your content, get visual and start posting infographics, short videos and pictures.

Ask For Engagement

We’ve all seen the status update from a business page that tells the sad story of paid reach on Facebook and begs you to click “like” so you can continue receiving updates.

While people might respond and click the button, this type of post makes your business look sad and desperate.

A better method is to give the reader something in exchange for their clicks in a way that doesn’t make it look like you’re begging.

For example, you might host a contest where everyone who clicks “like” on a post will be entered into a drawing to win a gift card.

Or, ask your readers to vote on one of two products they like better by commenting.

Contests, polls and Question & Answer sessions will not only get readers actually engaged with your brand, they will send the appropriate signals to Facebook to serve up more of your content.

Quick Bits Are Easy to Like

Common advice says to post frequent updates to your Facebook page so your readers stay engaged.

The trouble is that too many updates asking too much from your readers become tiresome and people may feel like you’re clogging up their feed.

The way around this is to deliver plenty of quick bits that readers can quickly “like” and move on.

Things like inspirational quotes, company announcements, product releases, funny pictures and quick jokes all make good little bits that can round out your updates so you’re not cluttering up everyone’s feed with heavy information.

Solid Strategies for Success

These tips will not only help you increase your organic each on your business Facebook page, but they are also a solid strategy for online marketing no matter your goals.

Posting a variety of content types to your Facebook Page will help you reach a wider audience and content that increases engagement also increases brand awareness and brand loyalty.

This strategy will come together to turn your Facebook Page into a successful tool that helps you meet your marketing goals.

 

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About Melanie Yunk (50 Articles)
Melanie Yunk, President, Roaring Pajamas Melanie Yunk started working as a social media and search engine optimization consultant early in 2009, when she founded Roaring Pajamas, a digital marketing agency in Northern California. Melanie is passionate about helping businesses market their products and services online. She brings more than 20 years of marketing, engineering and content experience to clients from various industries, including search engines, construction, retail, B2B, wholesale, heavy duty trucks, authors and more. Melanie previously founded Melanie's Fine Foods after purchasing Big Acres® Gourmet Sauces where she expanded the line to be distributed nationwide and in Canada. She also founded Yunk Consulting where she assisted software and semiconductor companies in implementing international standards for electronic databooks that she also helped developed while working at Intel Corporation. Her earliest career began at Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems where she worked on the Boeing 777 and MD11 cockpit projects. She continues to write on the Roaring Pajamas Blog and also as a guest blogger writing about all natural and gourmet foods. Melanie volunteers as a Board Member for the San Carlos Chamber of Commerce and former President of the Advisory Board for the Rosalie Rendu Center in East Palo Alto. She lives in San Carlos with her husband Kent and two Cornish Rex cats.