In 2016, a study by SocialFlow analyzed over 3000+ Facebook pages and their activities. This study revealed what many marketers had suspected for a long time: Facebook’s organic reach was declining. In fact, the study revealed that the reach per post had fallen by a whopping 42% as compared to the previous year.
What was even more alarming for business owners and marketers was the announcement that Facebook made at the start of 2018. In an attempt to bring people closer and facilitate more meaningful interactions on Facebook, posts from your friends would be prioritized over posts from pages.
Further, only posts from pages that get a significant amount of engagement, would be pushed higher up in people’s News Feed. And if your posts failed to do so, Facebook would limit their visibility. In effect, your organic reach on Facebook got severely restricted.
The good news is, you can still wade through this by using some simple strategies. Here are 7 effective ways to wade through Facebook’s declining organic reach.
1. Refine Your Posts
There’s simply no substitute for good, meaningful content if you wish to increase your reach and engagement. This applies to your website content as well as your social media posts. So, even though Facebook might have changed their algorithm so that people get to see more posts from their friends than business pages, you can still get around it with good content.
Posting evergreen content that includes how-to guides, best practices, and case studies is a great way to make sure that your posts reach a wider audience. If the content is interesting and engaging, Facebook will push them up the News Feed of your followers. Here’s an example of a useful post shared by Tasty that got some good engagement.
Image via Facebook
You should consider conducting an audit of the posts on your Facebook page to see which ones got the most traction. Accordingly, create more posts similar to those. People love to share content that’s useful and interesting, so focus on creating valuable content. Also, find out when your followers are most active and post your content at those times.
2. Post Video Content
YouTube might be the preferred platform for people to watch videos. However, the number of people who watch videos on Facebook has drastically increased over the years. In fact, a recent study found that 47% of people watch videos on Facebook while 41% of people watch videos on YouTube.
What’s even more interesting is that 71% of people in the study reported that they find sponsored videos to be relevant. And 60% of people visit the Facebook page of a publisher after viewing their videos.
This clearly indicates why video content needs to be a part of your Facebook content strategy if you want to combat the dying organic reach. So, make sure to create engaging, informative videos that are fun to watch and include captions, attractive visuals, and even animations.
For example, Facebook has pushed the following video up my News Feed either because I might have viewed similar content earlier or because of the massive engagement it has received. So, even though I’m not a follower of this page, I still get to see this on my News Feed.
Image via Facebook
3. Use Facebook Live
If videos are great for reaching more people on Facebook, live videos are even better. According to data from Facebook, people spend 3X more time watching live videos as compared to pre-recorded ones. And because people watch live videos more, Facebook has made changes to their algorithm so that live videos are prioritized over pre-recorded videos in people’s News Feeds.
So, make sure to post live videos on your Facebook page every once in a while. You can showcase more authentic content in this manner such as behind-the-scenes action or Q&A sessions where your audience can ask you anything.
4. Leverage Influencers
Influencers are individuals who have established themselves as thought leaders or experts in their niches and so, they have massive follower counts. Their blog and/or social media followers trust them immensely and value their recommendations. That’s the reason why 92% of marketers who have used influencer marketing, find it effective.
So, if you can collaborate with relevant influencers in your niche who have a decent-sized following on Facebook, you can reach a wider audience on Facebook. The key here is to find influencers whose niche aligns with your brand, products, or industry. Only then will these followers be likely to show interest in you.
Image via Facebook
It’s a great strategy to contact influencers who are already passionate about your brand and are talking about you on social media. Any sponsored posts they create for you are likely to resonate well with their audience as they will seem more authentic.
But how do you find such influencers? You can leverage AgoraPulse’s Social CRM feature to find them. In fact, the platform will monitor the web to find and rank them automatically for each of your social platforms.
Image via AgoraPulse
5. Ask Followers to Set Up Notifications
Facebook provides their users an option to decide which posts they would like to see first on their News Feed. This can be done for posts from friends and even business pages.
So, you should encourage your ardent followers to adjust their settings so that posts from your page are given priority on their News Feed. All they need to do is click on the drop-down next to the “Following” button on your page and select “See first.”
Image via Facebook
In addition, you should also remind your followers that they can view content from pages they have followed from the left sidebar on their News Feed.
Image via Facebook
6. Encourage Social Sharing
A great way to combat the declining organic reach of Facebook is to encourage your audience to engage with your content. This can be as simple as “If you liked this, share it with your friends.” The greater engagement a post on your Facebook page gets, the higher are its chances of being pushed up the News Feed of your followers.
To encourage social sharing, you should also pay attention to your social sharing buttons on your blog or website. You need to make sure that these sharing buttons are prominent on your web pages and can be seen easily.
Place them close to your content preferably at the top of your pages or to the left. However, remember not to overload your pages with too many buttons as this can negatively impact the user experience. Here’s how HubSpot places their social sharing buttons on their website.
Image via HubSpot
7. Use Ads to Promote Your Content
Finally, you can always pay to promote your content on Facebook in order to reach more people. However, remember to get your targeting right or else you’ll end up wasting your money and resources on ineffective advertising.
Facebook allows you to choose the people you want to show your ads to. Based on the characteristics of your ideal buyer personas, you should target the right age groups, locations, behavior, and interests. This can provide you with greater visibility and reach.
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Social media continues to evolve every day. The strategies that might have worked for you yesterday, might not bring you any results today. And so, marketers need to be aware of the latest developments in the market and adapt accordingly.
The same principle applies to Facebook’s dying organic reach as well. Work on creating great content that your audience finds meaningful and follow the strategies mentioned above to maximize your reach on Facebook.
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