It is every marketer’s dream – to ultimately drive traffic and sales at will. But it would be nearly impossible to achieve this goal if the marketer is unable to place the product or service in front of their ideal audience or customer.

Facebook – the world’s largest social media platform – is a great marketing tool built to help brands achieve set goals. It is no wonder brands and organizations spend loads of time and effort devising functional Facebook marketing strategies to reach their target consumers. Sadly, in recent years for many, these strategies have brought in little traffic and engagement through Facebook’s organic reach.

If you’ve been marketing on Facebook with little results, or have seen a downturn in activity, consumers didn’t suddenly dislike your brand. In fact, this tricky topic has been a source of headache and frustration for even some of the biggest brands. This is because, due to Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm, there has been a drop in organic search in recent years – a trend that began in 2014 and peaked in 2018.

Here’s the good news: in all of this, there is still a lot you can do to nullify the effect of these changes.  This article discusses what Facebook’s organic reach is and how you can improve it to reengage your followers and target audience.

What Really is Facebook Organic Reach?

Facebook’s organic reach simply refers to the number of people who are exposed to your content without paid distribution of PPC, Boosted Posts, or Facebook Advertising. Before trying to improve your Facebook page’s reach, it is important that you understand why the average organic reach on Facebook is declining.

There are two reasons:

• Facebook wants to ensure a great experience for every user. As a result, it ranks only the most relevant content tailored to the user’s needs. Facebook realizes that every user needs just the right amount of information – not too much and not too little.
• Facebook makes more money when businesses promote content through paid distribution (ads). So, Facebook pages with poor reach will likely have to spend in order to get their content seen.

Now that you have a clear understanding of how Facebook ranks content, let us discuss six powerful tips that can help you improve your organic page reach.

One: Be Selective About the Content You Post

When running social media marketing campaigns, it is sometime better to be sparing in your efforts vs. too frequent, online.  Depending on the business you are in and if you’re updating clients on downtime for your SaaS app vs. marketing makes the difference in the frequency of your posts.  Posting too frequently can make your audience dread seeing your post and you may soon become a nuisance on their news feed. The goal is not to post frequently and hope – it is to get as much engagement as possible from a single post. Whether your post is sponsored or not, it can be tailored for a specific audience. This is a great way to improve engagement as many people who see the post will likely find it relevant and interesting.

Two: Share Native Video Content

Facebook gives video content more preference as they are usually interactive and make more users stop and watch. Make your video content engaging by integrating visuals, captions, and animations that attract user interest.

According to a study by Quintly, native video content on Facebook enjoy as much as 186% more engagement than videos from other hosting websites. Another study shows that about 8 billion videos are watched by Facebook users daily. These figures highlight the need to take that extra step to publish quality video content on Facebook.

Three: Go Live on Facebook

If you are yet to do so, leverage the power of Facebook Live. Launched in April 2016, this tool has helped many businesses interact with their followers on a more personal level. In fact, Facebook live videos receive six times more interactions than other video content on the site, so you may want to take advantage of this tool if you’d like to improve your organic reach. Since social media users love interacting with videos happening in real-time, they spend 3X more time watching these live videos when compared to regular video content.

Four: Mix Up the Post Formats

Using video content is a great way to improve your Facebook organic reach, but it isn’t the only way. Mixing up your post formats makes your feed attractive and keeps your audience interested in your message. Remember that your chances of gaining more followers will largely depend on how diverse and informative your content is.

Include blog posts, stories, GIFs, quotes, polls, and unlinked images. You can entertain your audience with something as simple as a funny meme or a sneak peek into the behind-the-scenes happenings of your business. So long as your posts are quality and align with the interests of your audience, they will likely bring you a large share of Facebook’s organic reach.

Five: Study Your Competitors

Marketers are usually too focused on the performance of their own content that they forget to see what the competitors are doing. While it is a great idea to monitor your own content, looking into the goings-on of your competition gives you an edge. Beyond helping you create better content that engages your audience, you will be better able to improve your marketing strategy.

While analyzing your competitors, focus on what type of posts are bring them results, their choice of content, and the tone/style of the content. The goal here is not to copy what they are doing outright, but to seek inspiration and introduce your own ideas to even better your competition. These insights will help you better connect with your target audience, and ultimately improve your organic reach.

Six: Say No to Clickbait

It can be really tempting to attract your target audience through clickbait, but you should certainly avoid it. Not only will it not help your quest to improve your Facebook organic reach, but your posts could also even be demoted.

Facebook prioritizes quality; this means that questionable links or poor-quality content will attract the attention of the platform, and it wouldn’t end well.  Even their advertising platform has a rating scale for the quality of the ads you may pay to advertise.

Final Thoughts

Though there has been a decline in the average Facebook organic reach in recent years, it is still working. Yes, the game is no longer what it used to be, but you can still play it to your advantage by applying the tips above.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to improve your Social Media Marketing, or to optimize your Facebook Page, Google My Business Page, or other social media property for its best organic reach, please reach out to have a conversation.   We’re happy to speak.  888.980.8170 or you can also use the below form, and we’ll reach out to you by phone and email.  

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