As one of the Facebook business page managers, if you noticed a steep decline in organic reach over past 3 years, you’re not alone. You even might be doing a lot of right things. Relax! The update is in Facebook and you just got to update your strategy a bit and shoot some quick tactics for a long term benefit. Before we get into details of how to reach more fans, let’s talk about two things first.
1. What exactly happened at Facebook that impacted reach
2. And what makes fan see more of your posts
What exactly happened at Facebook that impacted reach
In 2012, Facebook page managers noticed that only 16% of their fans on an average happened to see the content. This fraction got smaller since then. Dropped to 6.5% last year and now most of you would notice even 2% of the fans receiving posts in their news feed.
Going with the figures, if your page has 1000 fans, only 20 may see your posts. Presuming, half of them may not find it relevant at the moment, you got attention only from 10 of them. They may like or comment, may be even not. You know what to expect in terms of engagement now.
Currently, Facebook applies over 100000 factors to decide a page’s reach.
So no surprise why there is low to no post engagement despite those glowing number of likes unless you initiate the paid boost. Eventually, which makes users think that Facebook is making all these updates just to force people invest more money in ads and boost to talk to their own fans. It makes page owners think Facebook is becoming useless and demotivaing for businesses.
So, what’s behind all this?
Facebook isn’t just growing. It’s flying. It stated two reasons behind the drop in organic reach.
1. Content overload over the years making the news feed not just competitive but diluted and compromised in quality
2. Facebook’s intent to improve user experience and retention over other social networks by showing only what’s most relevant to them – while keeping everything else under the surface
To address your reach challenge, you have to understand, accept and counteract these two reasons. Good news is – most of it is under your control.
Facebook clearly stated their motive – to give their users the best experience with the most relevant content in their news feed.
Additionally, Facebook declares you should assume organic reach will eventually arrive at Zero.
So, make up your mind to supplement your organic efforts with some paid advertising if you want to increase your Facebook reach.
That being said, knowing how Facebook newsfeed algorithm currently works can be helpful for understanding the broader Facebook marketing ecosystem. This will also help you learn how newsfeed impacts reach and what makes people see or not to see your content
Three factors of algorithm that makes your content into news feed
1. Recency and frequency of the post
How consistent and frequent you post decides how valuable your page and content may prove to your audience. A frequency of 2 posts a day for Facebook seem to be doing best around most niches
2. Relationship with the person posting and person targeted
Regular interaction with your fans and followers brings more affinity in the relationship. The user psychology encourages your fans to attend and click your content if they know you personally. Any action from like to comment or share will increase the reach.
3. Individual user preference
The current machine learning based algorithm adapts to individual user preferences. For example, if you are more likely to interact with links and least responsive to photos, Facebook’s algorithm will track this behaviour and show you lesser pictures and more links over time.
Ultimately, several other factors inform Facebook’s algorithm to ensure you mostly see what you prefer to see in your news feed.
Facebook takes the users choice very seriously and this is evident from the options to hide and report the posts.
The end goal here is to have its algorithm match News Feed content to the individual needs and interests of each and every user.
Facebook might have started with a casual intention and networking, but today over 60% of users on Facebook wants to get more business and leads via pages.
Here goes some ideas to increase your page content reach
1. Build an audience – Enough audience. Now we know that only a fraction of your page fan following will see your content in their news feed, the primary goal is build enough audience on your page. It may involve organic efforts like inviting your existing friends, networks and clients. It may be too small to achieve the business goals you’re expecting from the page.
2. Think of Facebook as a paid ad platform. Be generous in promoting your page and business to your specific targeted audience. I would invest a bigger budget initially and will lower it down over time to keep receiving new followers to my page. I would never stop the promotion though.
Secondly, use other advertising options such as boost post, promote websites, boost offers and events to amplify your reach among the page followers as well as outside it.
Before the organic reach at Facebook actually drops to zero, it’s sensible to learn and practice your paid advertising skills
Some cheesy ad performance boosters
- People get emotionally moved with a facial expression. Be it a real face or an illustration, try expressions and a face in your ads.
- Use bright colors to get attention. I have seen Yellow backgrounds and red buttons performing the best in most of my ads. It may vary with your content, message and industry though.
- Use trigger words such as Now, Best, Talk, Money, Save etc. People are naturally impulsive and immediacy triggers their buying behaviour.
- Create the sense of urgency. Nobody wants to lose a great deal. Show the scarcity with a lucrative offer and limited time.
- Use odd numbers. The mind considers odd numbers more appealing and responds to them faster as compared to even numbers.
3. Prioritize your objectives. What exactly you want your Facebook page fans to do? It’s beyond likes and comments on your posts. Ultimately, you want business and money. Create your flow chart or funnel what will make them get curious about your business and how you can convert their interest into business.
More questions, clarifications, private messages, clicks on the website, call button, comments and share mean a stronger interest than mere likes.
4. Be more selective about what you post. Marketers have to switch gears from untargeted, frequent publishing to targeted, selective publishing. The goal is no longer to spray and pray — it’s to get as much interaction from a single post as possible.
Every post you make should have four quality factors
Purpose – To build credibility
Goal – Reach, share & clicks
Approach – Show the fanciest and most striking feature of the final outcome and give a link to the whole product
Call to action – Final power words to evoke emotions and action from user along with a link to click
5. Educate your super fans that they can update their notification settings from your Page.
6. Recognize your fans. Make it mutual for the benefits. Share their content and not only they will love you but take your content more seriously next time.
7. Keep posts simple. Simple to understand text, clear message, what they will gain and direct-emotion evoking pictures.
8. Add some personality with your own life reel, lifestyle or team’s pictures. Such posts once a week get attention from your fans and boosts the reach naturally. It works like a break from usual business posts.
9. Engage your fans by asking questions. Make sure you ask simple to answer questions. The response is even better when you give options. make it easy on them.
10. Complete your business page details and optimize it for your prospects and search engines both. Good prospects wouldn’t take pains to visit your website but prefer clicking your about section to know more about you. Guess what they would find? You know it!
Andrea Vahl has written a brilliant guide to write and optimize your Facebook page sections.
11. Target the closest audience. Your page reach is likely to be highest when you have a fan base from the similar industry. More they interact with your content, chances are higher that your content will appear in their newsfeed. Keep your audience as niche and relevant as possible. Share your page with an appealing description in groups (due permission). Do share your page content from page to relevant groups to improve the reach. Make sure you have been a active member in these groups before broadcasting your messages frequently.
12. Be watchful for Follow Fridays. Fanpage Friday parties are good page and fan booster. This will not only let the viewers be your fan only if they loved your page and find it relevant but also shoots your reach around weekend. Search these Facebook friday parties with hashtags like #fanpagefriday #facebookfanpage #fanpageparty
13. Experiment with your posting styles and type of content. Run tests. See whether images are receiving more response or links. Personalized posts are getting more eyeballs or formal knowledge bytes and tips. Build a strategy around most striking content types and start doing more of it. This will be a collective boost to your reach. Spend 30 minutes every week to find out the best performing content types and styles.
14. Post updates to targeted fans. This will narrow down your fans who will be able to see the content but increase the conversion and engagement rate. The overall facebook page reach will improve if you look at a collective data with this approach.
15. Surprise them with giveaways and unexpectedly great content or information which they can instantly use. For example, send premium gifts to your top 5 or 10 fans. Hold a free online or in-person session if you’re a consultant. You can brainstorm ideas to see what will excite your old fans and new followers.
16. Find your old posts that performed well and post them again. Your new followers haven’t seen them yet and your old followers will most likely love them as reminders. Since they had a higher engagement and reach in the past, they’re most likely to show similar response even now.
17. Show the social proof. People are more likely to comment, like and share a post if they see a good share count. Cheeky but true. Find 20 great groups and randomly share each post to 5-6 groups and 3-4 pages and profiles. A share of 10 makes a decent starting number to encourage more share and likes.
18. God is in timings. Find the best timings when most of your fans are active and online from your Facebook page insights. Post your updates only around those timings.
19. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Add call to action in each post and make sure it is short, clear and easy.
All these steps and hacks are focused on increasing your page reach. However, it will eventually bring more new fans to your page since more of your existing fans will engage with the content and take your content to their timeline and networks.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how these worked. Do you have any other Facebook page hacks that worked? Share in comments.
Sunita Biddu is a digital business coach and power blogging mentor helping coaches and small business owners. She helps with building a strong and profitable online presence and reputation that creates a self-sustaining business. Sunita writes on this blog once a week about easy-to-use guides and articles about business, coaching, social media and blogging. You can grab some of her free resources and ebooks from the resources section.