Social media has significantly changed the way businesses market their products and services online, and it is a trend that we continue to see. Facebook is one particular platform that has consistently led the pack. If you want to build a strong media presence, Facebook is the place to be. With nearly 2.45 billion monthly active users, Facebook is a great place to start targeting your audience. Additionally, reports indicate that 62% of digital marketers state that utilizing Facebook is one of the most important marketing strategies they apply for their business.
However, with Facebook’s ever-changing core newsfeed algorithm, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to reach a wider audience organically, causing many marketers to believe that the era of Facebook’s organic reach has come to an end. Even some major brands are having a hard time reaching their target audiences. While this can be challenging, improving your Facebook organic reach is not impossible. You just need to apply the right tactics to achieve the results you want.
Here are some ways you can improve your organic reach:
1. Use videos/visuals
There are various types of learners — some people enjoy reading long pages of texts, while others prefer contents that include more visual components. Including simple infographics as part of your content strategy can help your business more clearly communicate complicated concepts. It is also helpful to incorporate a “multi-sensory” format when it comes to sharing your content so that you can cater to your audience’s different needs. This will help them become more engaged with your content, thereby increasing the likelihood that your readers will react to your post or share it with their friends and followers.
2. Determine the best times to post
The time you post on Facebook matters just as much as the content itself. For example, if you post content at 4:00 am, chances are high that by the time your target audience wakes up, that content will already be lost at the bottom of their Facebook newsfeeds By using Facebook Analytics, or any other third-party analytics tool, you can determine when your fans are online most frequently — you will be able to track peak days and hours for your followers. When you post content at the times when your followers are more likely to be online or browsing Facebook, you will increase the chances of your content showing up at the top of their newsfeed, which means more organic reach.
The downside of doing this is that when you post during peak hours, you’re more likely to face increased competition with your competitors since more people will also be posting during those times. One way to maximize this strategy is to push out your content just before peak hours — that way your content will be most visible the moment your audience opens their Facebook apps. Let’s say, for example, that Facebook insights show that most of your audience members are online at 6:00 am… try to post around 5:45 am so you can catch the wave early.
3. Go live
One of the ways to improve your organic reach is to use the Facebook live videos option. Research shows that 80% of brands receive higher organic reach with live videos as compared to regular videos. Using the live videos feature has huge potential to spark engagement and conversations, receiving six times more interactions than native videos. A particular topic that tends to gain more attention and engagement on Live videos is Q&A’s “Ask Me Anything”. Utilizing this type of format helps you establish authentic relationships and connections with your audience and enables you to give support to your followers. It also allows you to get to know your audience better and learn more about the community. Furthermore, you’ll be able to better customize your future content according to their needs in order to deliver maximum value.
Experiment with various topics relevant to your brand and see what works best, based on engagement. Make sure to also include and post about any upcoming live streams on Facebook stories, and through groups, advertising, emails, and posts in order to build increased awareness and excitement.