Marketing your business on Facebook has become more challenging over the past year as Facebook organic reach has dropped, consistently.
The latest algorithm change has kicked in and many pages are reporting an epic slide in stats. It’s not going to be easy to reverse the trend completely but there are a few things you can do to maximise your reach.
Watch 11 Tips For Increasing Your Facebook Organic Reach
I sometimes show people a slide when I’m teaching email marketing, it’s the response to a question I asked on my Facebook page about popup windows a couple of years ago. There are over 20 responses to that question. That amount of interaction seems almost impossible now on a business to business page unless you use Facebook Live (we’ll talk about that later).
Whenever I show that slide it reminds me how much Facebook has changed. People seem reluctant to comment and it can be a struggle at times to get a few Likes due to the tiny number of people Facebook choose to show posts to.
Does this mean you should give up on getting Facebook organic reach? Should you quit Facebook or should you commit to spending more on Ads?
Before you do I recommend measuring your reach for a while. You might be surprised at how much per post you are actually getting.
You’ll find this statistic in your Facebook insights (see below)
Keep a record of this on a weekly basis. I have seen a decrease in reach over the last month but it’s not as bad as it looks on page.
The chart below covers my average organic reach for the last 32 weeks. The red line represents the average reach for that period.
How can you increase your Facebook organic reach?
Now you are measuring your success here are 11 things you can do to get better reach on Facebook for free:
1. Avoid words like buy, book, download and don’t add a price
The Facebook algorithm is designed to penalise reach on sales posts. Facebook want to control the number of promotional messages users see in their news feeds. By using the words above, amongst others you are indicating that your post is promotional in nature.
2. Avoid words like contest, competition, giveaway, win
Facebook doesn’t like ‘out of context competition posts’. Just like sales posts, it will limit organic reach if it thinks you are running a competition so avoid the words above unless you are willing to boost your posts.
3. Is your content shareable? Does it provoke emotion; happy, sad, angry, laughter, nostalgia?
The latest algorithm update, the one that has seen so many of us experience a dive in organic reach means that unless your content gets shared you’ll reach very few people.
One thing that will encourage more sharing is emotion. If you can find or create content that makes people happy, sad, angry, shocked, nostalgic you are more likely to get shares.
4. Curate popular content from other pages
Look at other pages that share content that will appeal to your target market. Which posts have the most shares? The most interactions? Facebook knows this content is popular so if you share it to a new audience they should give it more reach.
5. Share your posts rather than links to groups
If you are in Facebook groups that allow you to share links to your content share your Facebook post rather than a direct link. This way you’ll get link clicks and extra reach. Make sure you are abiding by the group rules when you do this or you might find yourself getting thrown out.
6. Use a variety of posting types
Different Facebook users like different sorts of content. For example, I like reading articles and blogs so I see a lot of link posts in my feed. Other users prefer video or images. By posting a variety of content types you will reach more of your audience no matter what their preference is.
7. Use video but make sure it’s good
Video content is still hugely popular on Facebook. In fact, Mark Zuckerburg imagines a future when most of the content on Facebook is video. If you haven’t created video content for your page yet give it a go. There are lots of apps that can help you create better video. Here are some of my favourites.
8. Try Facebook Live
Facebook Live rules organic reach at the moment. Not only does it get great reach but you’ll also get a lot more comments and interaction than you will on other posts.
If you are in a ‘boring’ business like mine you could try a weekly show or an interview. If you have a more interesting business go live when something noteworthy is happening. If you are looking for inspiration search the #facebooklive tag on Facebook.
9.Monitor timing, which times and days are getting the best reach
There is no universal best time to post on Facebook, you’ll need to experiment yourself. Make a note of times that seem to get the best reach. Last year 6am was the best time of the day for me to post, this has shifted to 11am for me recently.
It’s also worth mapping out the day of your ideal customer. When do they have time to look at Facebook? What sort of content are they able to consume at what time of day? Your customer is going to be interested in different content when they are out and about on their mobile than when they are at home in front of a computer.
10. Re-share most popular posts … after a few months
Take a look at your Facebook Insights and make a note of your most popular posts. Add these back into your posting schedule a couple of months later, you should see them perform well again.
11. Be surprising, interesting, entertaining or educational but stay on topic
This is easier said than done but if you create great content you’ll get a better reaction straight away and Facebook is more likely to show it to other people. Before you hit publish check it over. Is it surprising, interesting, entertaining or educational? If not don’t share.
Your Turn
That’s my 11 tips for getting better organic Facebook reach. Do you have any tried and tested techniques to add? I’d love to hear them.
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