If you’ve paid attention lately, you’ll notice that your organic Facebook engagement and reach on your business page is probably dipping or is stagnant.
That’s because the Facebook algorithm is constantly changing and you have to keep up and feed your audience what the algorithm wants. Learn how to increase your organic Facebook reach and engagement with these tips.
What Should I Do to Improve Organic Reach on Facebook?
We’ve taken our experience, what we’ve learned from other really smart social media marketers and put together this quick list of must-do’s and tips to improving your organic engagement on Facebook. And be sure to watch through to the end for a few bonus tips.
Right now, organic reach is somewhere between 1 – 6%. That means most posts you put out on your Facebook business page only organically shows in 1-6% of your followers feeds. And you’re probably saying, yeah…I see that all the time. I put out awesome content and only get a handful of likes, shares, comments, etc. Why am I putting in all this effort for so little return? Well…follow these 6 tactics to see a huge improvement in your organic engagement. I’ll also let you in on a few things NOT to do.
First thing…
Video
Video posted natively to Facebook gets a TON more engagement than photos or links. Facebook is really working to become the next great streaming service and so they give preference to showing your video over photos and links. A wiser person that myself once said, your posts should consist of 70% video, 20% photos and 10% links. Facebook wants users to stay on Facebook…so external links often get very little traction. The nice thing is though, you can always post a link in your video or photo post description, so there’s still opportunity to drive traffic to your site.
Second
Facebook Live videos.
Have a new product to feature, an update from the factory floor or just want to have a chat with your followers? Hop on a Live video and share with the world! We’ve seen nearly 6 times the engagement rate of Facebook live videos over any other type of post. The nice thing too is that the live video will live on your page and people can watch the replay later if they don’t catch it while it’s live.
Third
Post photos of human faces!
Yes, simple, but it works. For the longest time we were posting a lot of graphics and things we designed and while they were attractive and well put together, we just weren’t getting the engagement from them we were hoping for. We did a bit of research, compared what worked well in the past and what we found is that people related to people. Weird! Once we started posting pictures of us in action around the office, out on video shoots, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, we started getting a ton more likes, shares, comments.
Fourth
Watch Parties.
We scheduled a watch party for one of our clients, promoted it about a week out, set up a Facebook event so people could invite their friends and it was a HUGE success. A Watch Party is a pre-produced video that you load to Facebook and schedule to go live at a certain time. Your followers will be notified that your video is about to go live and once they’re on your page, they can comment, talk with their friends about your video. It’s a great chance for you to engage with your audience over a shared piece of video content that they really relate to.
Fifth tip
Not Earth shattering, but it works.
As a way to grow your organic reach and engagement, ask your followers simple, short questions that they can weigh in on. Everyone loves to share their personal opinions on social media…why not give them the opportunity to be a part of the conversation in a way that makes them feel good and that their opinion is appreciated?
Sixth Tip
Tame the Tassels.
Don’t be salesy! Social media in general is meant to share your brand, your story, connect with your audience in an authentic way. Followers want to know who you are as people, how you support your community, what you celebrate and they love seeing behind the scenes photos and videos. If you’re constantly hammering on “buy this,” sign up for that, join me now! … you’re only going to irritate people and lose their interest and loyalty. Remember, there are real people on the other end of the line. When you’re creating content, consider the types of posts you enjoy from the business pages you follow. Keep social media conversational and approachable and you’ll definitely see a big increase in your engagement.
BONUS TIPS
1 – Try posting less often. If you’re posting 3 times a day, cut that back to once a day and give that a try. It seems counterintuitive, but quality of content is definitely more important than quantity.
2 – You can drive traffic to your Facebook page from other sources. Every Facebook post has its own unique URL that you can post on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, your blog. Letting fans know that you have a new post up on Facebook via those other platforms will be another excellent way to encourage engagement.
3 – Start using the Messenger ChatBot. Having questions already in the queue to help your followers find answers to their questions is really important to keeping them engaged. Set yourself up as the expert and automate some of the customer support by using the Messenger ChatBot.
4 – Don’t veer off into the weeds too often. Stay on topic with your content. Your followers are there for a reason and they expect you to deliver on your core brand.
5 – Try to allocate at least a little, itty bitty ad budget. See which posts do the best and boost those posts. You’ll start to see even more engagement with even $5 – $10 dollars behind those posts.
Lastly…the BIG one, the grandaddy, Big Lebowski of them all…
DON’T POST YOUTUBE LINKS ON FACEBOOK!
YouTube is Facebook’s main competition in the video space and the algorithm will actively shut down your YouTube post. I can’t say that this is true EVERY TIME you post, but for the most part, Facebook and YouTube would just prefer to stay on opposite sides of the playground. There’s no friendly dodgeball or Red Rover games going on between the two.
Post your video directly to Facebook instead and you’ll see much better engagement.
We’d hate to see you have to sit against the wall the rest of recess for posting YouTube links.
I hope you find these tips useful and you’re able to start improving your organic reach and engagement on your Facebook business page.
What other marketing, social media, video production or digital advertising topics are you interested in and what would you like us to cover in our next video? Leave us a comment and be sure to subscribe to stay up on the latest from The Marketing Expedition. Adios for now and as Rhea always says, Enjoy the Journey!
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