How to Deal with Facebook’s Declining Organic Reach

Source: http://blogs.constantcontact.com/

Organic reach refers to how many people you can reach for free on Facebook by posting content to your Brand’s Page.

 Facebook has been pretty regularly rectifying its news feed algorithm over the past few years in an effort to show users ‘higher quality content’. It doesn’t want you promoting your brand for free (that’s what paid ads and sponsored posts are for).

With this, Facebook’s potential for organic reach has come into question lately.

Brian Boland (VP Advertising Technology, Facebook) mentions two major reasons for the decline-

First, the massive amount of content shared by publishers on Facebook. Second, Facebook wants to increase the engagement in its News Feed. So, its algorithm ensures that only the most relevant and high-quality stories appear in a user’s feed.

However, it is possible to counter these changes with some efforts. Let's explore some tips for dealing with the decline in organic reach.

·         Have a complete profile

This is obvious, but still many brands miss the mark on this. Your page should have a recognizable profile picture (your logo), an engaging cover photo with a call-to-action, a completely filled ‘about’ section, and other relevant info that your followers should know. Add a Link back to your website, and use keywords in your about section so that your audience knows exactly what you are all about.

·         Engage

Social media is about conversations. If your posts and content don’t start conversations or at a minimum, add to existing conversations, then you’re doing it all wrong. Remember that engagement is a two-way street. Make sure that you quickly reply to all the comments. It’ll increase the engagement on the page and give the user another reason to visit you.

If you are not engaging, the user won’t hesitate in clicking the unlike button on your page (it’s just a click away).

·         Ask Questions

 Ask easy questions that can get interest of the readers. Posts with a question get more engagement than posts without a question.

You should always place questions at the end of your post rather than at the beginning or middle of the post to make it stand out. Posts that end with a question have a 15% higher engagement rate than posts with questions at the beginning or in the middle.

·         Post Quality Content

Always post high-quality content. Engage your audience with humour, inspiration and educational content.  The content you post shouldn’t promote your brand, but instead should provide value and quality to your followers. This creates brand recognition and can further help in building brand loyalty.

·         Keep it short

 The longer the length of your wall post, the less engaging the wall post is. Posts of 80 characters or less are the most engaging. Learn to edit your posts and keep them short and simple!

·         Posting Time

There are so many studies on the best posting time on Facebook. One study claims that it’s around 5 PM PST (Mon – Thu). Another claim that it is around 4 PM, I found that 3 PM works best to get clicks. Scratching your head already, aren’t you? Don’t blindly follow these claims. Dig into your Facebook Insights and find out when your fans are online. You can also test by posting at non-peak hours (10 PM to 3 AM). This works under the assumption that when there is a little being shared online, your content is more likely to stand out.

·         Frequency  of posts

Don’t post more than 2-3 times/day. It can irritate your audience.

But, you can post more often at widely different times if you’ve got an international audience. This will help you reach out to different segments of your audience (who live in a different time zone or log on to Facebook infrequently). You can also be successful, even with a higher posting frequency, by providing variety. Mix your posting schedule and post types. Also, test your page insights. Only your data can reveal your audience’s exact response.

·         Use Organic Post Targeting

Step 1: Enable targeting on your page settings.

Step 2: Check Facebook insights for data about your audience.

 Step 3: Run 2-3 targeted posts using different parameters.

 Step 4: Open Facebook insights and check your results.

Step5:  Target accordingly, with parameters that give you best results.

·         Get more shares

Share posts from your Facebook Page on your Facebook Profile. This strategy is for the avid Facebook user. You may have 1000+ friends on your personal Facebook profile and sharing the content with them can add on to drive significant results.

 If you still struggle with organic reach, chances are you need to do more testing on your Facebook Page. Every business is different and the things that work for one page may not work for the other. Study your insights, test with different variants and go with the ones that suit you. Happy posting!