7 Tips to improve your Facebook post's organic reach
The reach of Facebook posts has been on the decline for some time, but that doesn’t mean that businesses shouldn’t be posting content. In early 2018 Facebook released an update in its algorithm that prioritizes content that provides “meaningful engagement”.
Facebook’s algorithms place posts from family and friends at the top. It also prioritizes posts that cause people to interact and talk to one another. So it’s the job of the business page manager is to create content that the audience can engage with.
Here are some tips which can help your posts to get more engagement and rank better on Facebook.
- Publish different types of content
Publishing different types of content on Facebook keep your audience intrigued. When you keep publishing the same content format every day, people switch off to what you’re posting.
If people are not interested, they aren’t tagging and engaging with each other. Plus social media marketing experts also believe Facebook prioritizes posts in a few formats.
So if Facebook releases a new post format, such as 360 videos, use it as soon as you can. The key takes away is to make sure you’re not posting the same thing every day.
2. Use visual content
Visual content gets significantly more engagement than normal posts and is better remembered by views. Visual content such as photos, videos, and graphics, receives 88% more engagement than text posts. As such we recommend using visuals with each post you create.
3. Go live
Speaking of using video, try using live video content. Live video content receives six times as many interactions as normal. As per Facebook’s algorithm, interactions, if they’re meaningful, improve organic reach.
However, make sure you’re offering valuable live content. Live stream a photo or loop video, like a photo promoting people to react, won’t take you to the top. Facebook lowers the reach of such content.
4. Don’t Use Engagement Bait
Getting users to Engage with your content is great, but only “meaningful” engagement will work. Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t prioritize all engagements. It boosts posts that will create discussion among users.
Telling people to like, vote with a reaction, or tag a mate is considered “engagement baiting”. Not only do these posts get boosted, but they also reduce the reach of your whole business page.
Create posts that encourage discussion among users. For example — you can ask questions, share user-generated content or start a contest. You need to engage the audience humanly and genuinely.
5. Figure out your best posting time and frequency
Finding the right time to post your content is almost as important as the content you post. Sharing your content at the wrong time sweeps your content in the sea of competition. Check your Facebook page Insights to find your audience's peak activity times.
Using your insights as a guide will increase your chances of being at the top of your user’s feed. Also to avoid, getting swept away by the competition, post just before peak hours. There are also some tools to further guide your posting schedule.
As for posting frequency, conduct experiments to see how much content your audience wants to see. The number of worthwhile engagements you’re getting will determine your organic reach. If people are highly engaged in all of your posts, maybe try to create some more.
If their interest decreases on one post may keep your frequency low. To find your ideal frequency, you have to test. Set up tests for a few weeks at a time. Try posting once a day for a few weeks, then try posting two or three times a day for the next week.
After the tests, check your average reach and engagements for each posting frequency. Then you’ll know if less is more, or more is more.
6. Encourage your social circles to engage your content
Facebook’s algorithm boosts content from family and friends, so ask for the help of your family, friends, and employees. Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes interaction among family and friends, so asking them to share will improve your reach.
If an employee share’s your post, it gets eight-time more engagements. Meanwhile, content shared by family and friends is 16 times more likely to get read than posts shared by brands.
Plus getting your social networks to share your post will get it seen by more audiences. Generally, your followers are the main audience for your posts. However, sharing your posts with your family and friends will help you gain access to their audiences.
7. Ask the audience to adjust notification settings
A great way to improve your organic reach is to get around the Facebook Algorithm. You don’t need to be a hacker, all you have to do is just ask. To get more of your content seen, ask your followers to turn on their notifications.
Users can go onto your Facebook page and enable notifications for your posts by hitting the edit button next to follow. From here, users can select to see your posts first or to be notified when you post. However, they can also be notified when you have a new post.
By getting your users to see your content first, you will also see an increase in your reach. However, don’t post your content too often or let it go too sales orientated. Otherwise, you’ll drive your close followers away.
Conclusion
Your Facebook page reach is one of the most important metrics on your Facebook account.
The higher it is, the more of your following you can reach with your posts. This means more traffic, engagement, and ultimately sales.
I’ve shared with you 7tips to improve your Facebook post's organic reach.
Test and implement as many of them as you can. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, start with just one or two.
There’s one last final important lesson I need to leave you with:
Numbers are useful, but care more about the connections you make.
Having deep connections with a small audience is much more important than having a large reach with shallow connections.
So while you should track your organic reach and try to improve it, don’t obsess over it. Pay more attention to whether you get positive and thoughtful comments.
Additionally, for those of you who prefer something visual, I’ve created an infographic that you can quickly follow as well to improve your organic reach on Facebook.
