If your company has its own Facebook page, you’ve likely noticed that it’s become much more difficult to get your posts in front of your fans without paying for advertising or promotion.
It’s all due to a major shift in Facebook’s algorithm. Two years ago, it was possible for brands to get 16 percent unpaid or “organic” reach. Today, some brands have seen their organic reach dwindle to 2 percent.
Why was there a change? According to Facebook, it was in order to surface more “high-quality content” on the platform. As an increasing number of businesses started vying for attention in users’ news feeds, Facebook had to slow down and prioritize the content the end user sees.
And more changes could be on the way. Facebook’s news feed algorithm is tweaked constantly to ensure a better experience for users (and a more profitable experience for advertisers). You should form a clear strategy to keep up with the changes and leverage your business’s Facebook community.
Here are 12 strategies to help you adapt to Facebook’s changes:
Create great, meaningful content that engages your fans: Share interesting and relevant posts, images, articles and links targeted to your ideal customer. Show fewer memes and spammy links. Also, remember that Facebook is a social platform and people do not like to be sold to every time you post.
Don’t rely fully on Facebook: Grow your presence on different social platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Vine, YouTube, LinkedIn or Tumblr. Find where your audience hangs out, join the conversation as an active participant and start building relationships.
Interact more: Use social media less like a billboard and more like a conversation between you and your fans. Be sure to reply back
to comments—you want engagement! Yes, this means you or someone on your staff will have to pay attention to the page.
Resist the urge to use calls to action that are superficial: Asking fans to “like” or “share” an image or post is considered spam. Instead, use calls to action that help them get involved in a discussion. By asking easy-to-answer questions that only require one- or two-word answers, you are likely to get more engagement. Example: Do you prefer white, milk or dark chocolate?
Share links to articles: Post the link and include the preview. Stick to information that your target audience would find helpful and interesting.
Post multiple pictures: Posts that contain two or more photos get significantly more reach than those with only one photo.
Post more often: Facebook is a daily activity and, in most cases, you should be posting multiple times per day. Start by posting daily, work up to three times a day, and then tweak as needed for your audience. There are many different opinions about how much is too much. Some experts recommend one time daily, and others recommend 12 times. The key is consistency and relevant content for your ideal audience.
Post at the right time: Check your stats to see when your fans are online, and experiment with different posting times. Try interaction early in the morning, late afternoon and after dinner. On average, people check Facebook five times during the day.
Change up the types of posts: You can do status updates, links, photos, videos, offers, events, milestones and cover image changes. Variety is the spice of life.
Include “@” tags of related pages in your posts: Example: If you post a quote by Zig Ziglar, tag his page. Facebook has made it easier for businesses to cross-promote each other by allowing Facebook pages to tag other pages in their messages and broadcast those posts to a wider audience.
Post directly on your page It is a convenience to use a third-party app like Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Buffer to push content to Facebook, but Facebook will typically penalize you with fewer views in the news feed. I encourage you to use Facebook’s scheduler for Pages when possible.
Embrace pay-to-play: Adding Facebook ads to your social media marketing strategy is just good business. With more than 1.32 billion monthly active users (as of the second quarter of 2014), a business will get the most from its time and effort on Facebook by paying for ads. You can target ads to your specific target market and grow your reach and business for as little as $300 per month. Instead of resisting and complaining about paying for ads, put on your business hat and figure out how to use this inexpensive yet powerful tool to your best advantage.
