As a Marketing & Social Media Consultant, nothing frustrates me more than Facebook. It is the bane and saviour of my existence. But why the love/hate relationship you may ask? Others who use Facebook for business will understand what I’m talking about, however, if you don’t, here’s why our relationship is such a roller coaster ride.

When Facebook introduced pages for businesses, it was glorious. Revolutionary, even. There was nothing quite like it on the web and it elevated online marketing to a whole new level. You were able to capture your audience’s attention easily and in a cost-effective way. However, over the past couple of years that has started to decline. At least the “capturing your audience’s attention” part and this had lead to frustration among social media practitioners.

More companies and people are joining Facebook daily, that inevitably means more content is being shared. In a logical world, one would ask – “How can you possibly sift through all of that content and find what’s good for you?” The answer to this question is Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm. This algorithm has been the primary cause for the decline in organic reach that pages have been experiencing. Organic reach as defined by Facebook “refers to how many people you can reach for free on Facebook by posting to your page.” While Facebook caters to the personal user and what they are more interested in seeing it has been at the expense of businesses using Pages to promote their business.

So the question then looms, how does one crack the organic reach code?

From personal experience, I’ve found that it’s not that easy. As with anything in life it takes consistency and sometimes money. Facebook’s ultimate goal is to improve their News Feed by showing higher quality content and cleaning up News Feed Spam. They estimate that users can see 1,500 – 15,000 stories in their News Feed each time they log on. That is a monumental amount of information to absorb.

So as a business, how do you stand out from the crowd and ensure you’re getting the reach and results that you want?

Here’s What’s Worked for me:

Crafting Useful Content:
I know you may be asking yourself, what does that mean? It means paying attention to who your target audience is and aligning what you want to promote with things that will interest them. This takes time, effort and a little bit of patience. Don’t rush this. Take the time to create attractive visuals and copy that will entice your audience

Following a Specified Scheduling Programme:
I can’t impress upon you enough how important this is. Not only will it make your life a little more stress-free but it will save you time and energy along with giving your page the consistency it needs. So, create a schedule and don’t be afraid to use a scheduling app like Buffer or Hootsuite to create posts in advance.

Re-Sharing Content:
The one mistake that some of us with business pages make, is not re-sharing content enough. It’s a HUGE mistake to just post your best creative or promotion once. There. I said it. Be sure to share that awesome information more that once over the course of a week, month/s and even year.

Facebook Ads:
After all the creating and sharing and following a schedule, sometimes you still need a little boost. That’s where Facebook ads come in. They are cost-effective and they work. For those of you on a tight budget, I would stick to promoting only the most important aspects of your business. Let the ads work their magic while you stick to the rest of the plan.

The declining organic reach can be frustrating and make you want to pull your hair out, however, there are some tried and true methods to help improve your reach. It has challenged us social media marketers to become more creative, step outside the box and create valuable share-worthy content. If you look at it that way maybe it’s not such a love/hate relationship after all.

Until next time.

XO,
-Marisse-

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