With the increase in brands’ presence on social media, competition is at an all-time high. What may have worked earlier with organic posting will only help scratch the surface without social media advertising. But don’t lose hope! There is the possibility to improve organic reach on social media with a few tweaks to your content strategy.
What is organic reach?
Organic reach refers to the number of people that can see your content without paying for it, i.e.- organically. Organic posts are shown to people that have interacted with you in the past by some means of an engagement or because one of your friends has done so.
Why is organic reach dropping?
This is a common question given the popularity of Facebook and how it helped content reach the limits it did when it first launched. So if it was successful then why is organic reach no longer working now?
One of the main reasons is the volume of content. Research goes on to show that there are more than 510,000 comments and 293,000 statuses posted on Facebook. This would greatly vary depending on the number of Facebook users available in a given country as well. In short, competition on Facebook is extremely high and only increased further after the acquisition of Instagram.
The second reason is Facebook prioritising personalised news feeds. To enhance user experience, Facebook constantly experiments with modifying content to best suit individual users. This is commonly seen with the question “Why am seeing this” or similar questions.
So how can we improve organic reach on Facebook? We are giving you five tips to help get a head start.
Before we delve into this, keep in mind that Facebook is a social media platform that facilitates conversation and interaction between individuals. Aim to drive your content strategy in a similar direction. Some questions you can ask yourself are:
– You can be a brand but think of how you would like your fans or followers to engage with your content?
– How would you like your brand to be remembered?
– What sort of interactions and engagement would you like to drive through your content?
Tip 01: Diversify the post offering by increasing meaningful interactions
Think stories, images, videos, links, groups, Facebook watch etc when posting content. As mentioned, Facebook is constantly experimenting with new post formats and product offerings. Make the most of this and try out different formats diversifying the experience for those who engage with your posts as well.
A special note on links, however, remember not to always be sharing links with every single post or even sharing them every single day. Many studies show that having links included in posts that would direct someone outside of Facebook would contribute to driving traffic away from Facebook.
Tip 02: Automation isn’t always a good thing
This is a tricky one especially when you think that with the countless number of available that you would want to make things easy by feeding all of your content. While this may be true, as we discussed in the previous post, Facebook is keen on increasing interaction between and among individuals. This means, that even brands need to make more effort to bring out a human-like presence with their content. Think back to the three questions we asked before diving into these tips. I.e: – how would you want your audience to perceive you?
Tip 03: Interest trumps intent
As a brand, it’s common to think of social media, Facebook in particular as a promotional tool. But that isn’t always the case. In fact, as a social network, Facebook doesn’t prioritise promotional content. On the contrary, it gives priority to content that enables social interaction and engagement. So what do brands do in this instance? When you think of your brand, you would automatically think of your consumers or clients. Why not try to build a community with them through a dedicated Facebook group for your page? Increasing evidence shows how organic reach can contribute to conversions and this might be just the step that needs to be taken in that direction!
Tip 04: More followers does not translate to higher reach
If there is a piece of golden advice any digital marketer would extend to any brand is to never attempt at bypassing the Facebook ecosystem by buying followers. While the number will “look good” on screen, the algorithm and technology have come a long way and can identify genuine followers from purchased ones and will mark them down as spammers decreasing the value of your page and thereby affecting its organic reach as well. Most of your genuine followers too will notice this just by measuring the engagement rates with the number of followers.
What’s more, with the growing number of brands on Facebook, the social network will always prioritise and support promoting organic reach on pages that have a lesser number of followers (and thereby prompting the others to convert to paid advertising to maintain a balance).
Finally on the topic of more followers is that if you as a brand are unable to sustain the number of followers, respond to the ongoing engagement be it comments, direct messages, reviews etc, that would also contribute towards the decrease in your page’s overall organic reach and engagement rate.
Hence, more followers is not always a good thing.
Tip 05: Spend time building evergreen content
Saving the best for last, when developing your content strategy every week, month, quarterly or bi-annually, always fit in pieces of content that will stay relevant for extended periods. Contrary to popular belief there is nothing wrong with reusing old pieces of content on your pages. It’s also a good way for your followers to understand that you as a brand are consistent, and reliable and continue to uphold the same brand values, and promises that you did since they began following your page. What’s more, using evergreen content is a great way to fast-track putting together your content calendar.
There you have it! Five tips and secrets to help improve the organic reach of your brand. Don’t forget to throw in regular reviews of your existing content strategy as well as look at your Facebook insights and analytics regularly to see what works, what doesn’t and what you can do more of.
Good luck!
