With an estimated 2.89 billion monthly active users, Facebook continues to dominate as the leading social media networking site globally. Reaching this massive audience, however, is now becoming harder than ever. Why? Because organic reach on Facebook has taken a massive nosedive in recent years. At the core, new Facebook updates and the Facebook algorithm have been geared towards encouraging more meaningful interactions and affording users the ability to control the content they want to see on their news feed. Recently, this has been a subject of controversy, sparking lengthy debates and causing headaches amongst advertisers and marketers. What can be done? The obvious answer is devoting more time and energy to help you get Facebook likes and to grow your Facebook page organically through multiple ways such as running free giveaways on Facebook and mixing up your posts. It is not impossible!
What does organic reach on Facebook mean?
Simply put, organic reach is the number of users who view your content without the aid of paid distribution.
In stark contrast, paid reach (another type of Facebook reach) is the number of users who view your content because you paid a fee to promote it. With that distinction established, let’s examine powerful tips that will drive more meaningful interactions and increase your Facebook organic reach.
Don’t mess with the Facebook ecosystem
Increasing the number of users to engage with your content to resurrect your organic reach on Facebook is crucial. We totally get it. But don’t do it the wrong way or you will end getting hurt… Don’t buy 3,000 likes for merely $5; instead, use engagement-inspired click baits, don’t bombard your fans with 20 poor-quality updates every single hour.
Note that, while Facebook’s recent algorithm prioritizes posts that draw a lot of engagement – these posts ought to also inspire meaningful interactions and discussions. In fact, once Facebook detects manipulative and spammy posts, your organic reach will be severely limited as a punishment. Just stay on Facebook’s good graces and stick to the code!
Take advantage of different post formats
In the early days, Facebook options were constrained to just posts, videos, and ads. Nowadays, there is a plethora of new features to choose from, including Facebook Watch, Facebook Stories, Facebook Polls, and GIFS.
A lot of organizations are yet to make the most out of such features – that provides you an opportunity of driving even more organic traffic for your posts by filling in the gap. If your reach from image and video posts has been falling off, try using Facebook Stories to post content that your fans will absolutely love. Don’t be afraid to mix everything up, that’s how you can get more views on Facebook posts.
Publish more native Facebook videos
If you want to reach more people on Facebook, take advantage of perhaps, the most attractive easy-to-consume content on social media – video. More often than not, a bulk of posts that go ‘viral’ and earn the most likes and shares are usually videos. Why? Because they drive the most engagement.
Note: Facebook may reward you up to 10x more organic reach for sharing native Facebook videos on the platform. In fact, a survey conducted by Facebook revealed that 48% of the featured users bought a product after simply watching a video on Facebook.
As such, focus on creating organic videos that introduce your fans to your products and resonate with their values.
Go Live and be original
Speaking of mixing up your posts, we strongly recommend using live video content – at least according to numbers (which never lie). To elaborate, data from Socialbakers puts it that when compared to regular video posts, live videos have almost doubled engagement rates.
They create a genuine sense of interconnectedness and community, especially in the comment section. All your fans can share a similar experience at the same time.
Run a Facebook contest or sweepstakes
Everybody loves free things, right? What better way, therefore, to boost your organic reach, than by running a sweepstakes that will stimulate your fans to comment, like, and share your post. A report from Dog Social Media indicates that accounts running giveaways tend to grow up to 70% faster! They also obtain 3.5 more likes, and 64 more comments, when compared to those that don’t.
One example could be a Mother’s Day Contest where mothers can share their favorite childhood photos of their children in the comment section – and the best one could win one of your products (could be diapers). This will not only promote the brand but also drive tones of engagement in addition to strengthening customer relations.
Tune your publishing times
Another important tip to increase your organic reach on Facebook is to fine-tune your publishing time. Identify the best and optimal times of posting on Facebook – preferably when most of your audience is online. One way you can achieve this is by examining your performance data and picking out a pattern of heightened interactions. This will increase your visibility, and ultimately, your organic reach. With these tips, it becomes evident that while your content performance may be taking a huge blow organically, increasing your organic reach is certainly not impossible.
We do not know what the future of organic reach on Facebook holds. But our goal in this exceptional marketing site remains the same – being creative, producing high-quality content for our fans, and making the most out of it.
