According Mari Smith “ Organic reach has become harder to achieve on Facebook and marketers are turning to creative ways to get their messages seen.” So what do we as social media marketers do? Mari Smith explains.
Smith basically says organic reach is so 2012. This is true in the fact paid reach is the way most businesses get in front of their audiences. Many still believe that the more you post – organic reach will just happen. You cannot expect ROI from just posting, you have to actually invest a little bit of money into it.
But why is organic reach declining so quickly?
For one there are 50,000,000+ businesses on Facebook, each posting an average of 1.48 times a day. On average, businesses are only reaching about 2% of their audience, at a declining rate. So basically the reason for declining organic reach is there are too many posts and not enough space.
Facebook’s goal is to show the most engaging posts, so not all posts are treated the same. It depends if the criteria of the post fit into their algorithm. It’s often hard to predict how well a post will do organically, but here are the basics of the Facebook algorithm. Keep in mind this a very simplified version.
News Feed Visibility: Interest x Post x Creator x Type x Recency
Therefore, it makes sense that the new trend is to pay to play. Otherwise you will continue to see your reach decline.
One recent update in this algorithm is that Facebook ranks reactions higher than likes. Therefore, businesses are looking for creative ways to encourage people to react rather than just giving them a thumbs up.
So what do you need to do?
First make sure your content is sharable. You want people to be scrolling through their feeds then stop on your post. This will help you organically because Facebook rewards engaging content. However, when paired with paid advertising you will see your advertising money go farther and get a greater return when paired with shareable content.
Before you promote a post, build some organic traction. Facebook will even suggest posts that are doing better than others. These are the ones you want to promote. Video has a greater chance of being viewed and shared. It is also suggested that you mix post types and repost your most popular posts. Re-sharing popular posts will allow those that didn’t see it the first time to have a chance to see it and engage.
Prioritize audience engagement. Take time to engage with your audience. It keeps them coming back to see what you have to say and most of all, it keeps them interested.
What about boosting posts? You want to ensure sure you are strategic in what you choose to boost. Don’t just choose the ones Facebook tells you to boost. These posts are usually doing fine organically. Determine your objective for boosting the post. Do you want to increase awareness or are you trying to drive traffic to your website? This will aid in your decision making process. Guesses are you will have a mixture of both.
To get the most out of your Facebook marketing you must mix organic reach with paid promotion. Having an understanding of how Facebook ranks posts is also important so that you can optimize your posts before you boost them. This will get you the most ROI for your efforts.
Happy Facebooking!