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