Facebook is a huge potential market for brands. A recent study shows that 1.23 billion people log onto Facebook daily. Companies know that their target audience uses Facebook, so they set foot in running fun pages, and this environment is getting competitive.
In fact, Facebook helps marketers keep in touch with their customers and attract new visitors. Once I even got an invitation for an interview thanks to Facebook.
If you have a budget, you can use paid ads to promote your post. Venngage’s ebook for how to create attention-grabbing Facebook ads is a good resource to get you started.
But if you’re hard pressed for money, you need to be creative to improve Facebook organic reach (the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution).
To understand the algorithm of the Facebook news feed, you need to know current trends. Here’s a short summary of Facebook’s algorithm changes:
- Facebook prioritizes posts from friends and family.
- You get content that is relevant to your preferences.
- Video content is more valuable than photos and texts.
- Posts with “Reactions” have more value in your news feed.
- Fake news sites are banned.
In fact, just 6% of people see your content in their news feeds.
Although Facebook wants to grow revenue with the help of paid ads, there are some strategies you can use to boost organic reach.
Here are 13 creative methods to boost Facebook organic reach.
1. Post regularly when your audience is active
If you know when your target audience wants to see your content on social media, you can increase organic reach without putting in much effort.
You can get better audience engagement if your audience is active. There’s no need to invest in analytical tools to understand the best time to post. If you run a Facebook page, you can use its analytics to see when your audience is online.
Having interesting and useful content to post on Facebook isn’t enough to increase users’ engagement. To get more likes, shares, and comments, you need to know the best time for your audience to publish posts.
But what is the ideal number of posts a day?
Well, it depends. The number one factor is your strategy: rely on the amount of information you have to cover. On average, the ideal number of posts is 1-2 a day.
2. Use different types of content
It’s important to know the anatomy of a successful Facebook post to get the greatest value for your effort. Using different types of content (and what works better for your audience) is a key.
If you know the key features of a successful Facebook post, you’re about to win!
- It’s brief: 10 words or even less is the perfect length for a Facebook post.
- It’s informative: Your post will attract more people if it gives valuable and useful information that satisfies their needs.
- It’s relevant: The information you post should be up-to-date and relevant. Visitors are interested in getting breaking news.
- It has an image: Visual content attracts attention as it’s easier for people to perceive information. Photo posts on Facebook receive 53% more likes than the average post.
- It has a CTA: When people interact with your post (leave likes, comments, shares), it increases your EdgeRank, so you need to cause a buzz.
The main types of content you can post on Facebook fan page:
Visuals (charts, graphs, infographics, photos):
Even if you don’t have much design experience, you create your own Facebook images using templates.
Videos (live streams, short TV shows):
And text (articles, discussions, quotes, news, etc.):
Using different types of content helps to reach the maximum audience and turn potential fans into subscribers, and it means improving organic reach. It’s not a secret that shareable content increases the number of subscribers without paid ads.
To craft shareable content, pay attention to the list of reasons why people want to publish it:
- It describes people’s views: 68% of people share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about.
- It brings value: If your post covers topics that can suit subscribers’ needs, it’s more likely they will share it with their audience.
- It helps them feel valuable: It’s in our nature to be proud of our achievements, and if you post something that proves subscribers’ value, they will share it to show to other people.
3. Put quality content first
When you put the quality of your content first, you prove that your audience matters. If you think about your audience’s needs, you can craft outstanding content that doesn’t need to be boosted.
What makes great content?
- Evergreen and useful information (you post interesting and handy content that grabs attention). Some subjects just never get old are Love and Relations, Cuisine, Finance, Health, Career.
- Gives actionable tips (your audience can find answers to questions they crave for). If you advise something, include statistics to prove people the need of it and add a tip.
- It uses visual elements (check out this guide on how to create Facebook images that get more clicks).
Writing a high-quality post always takes time: collecting data and information, writing and editing it, finding a visual. On average, it takes 10-20 minutes per post.
Proficient social media marketers try to create content in advance, as it’s a good way to craft high-quality posts without pressure. Plus, you can schedule your posts to be published when you need them.
4. Create unique and useful visual content
Content with images increases a post’s view rate by 94%.
Visual content is eye-catching, so people pay attention to posts that include visual elements. It helps to increase organic reach as this type of content is more likely to be shared.
There are plenty of different types of visual content for Facebook.
Photos:
Infographics:
If you don’t have any experience designing infographics, start with an infographic template.
Promo images:
Videos:
Memes:
According to a recent survey by Venngage, many marketers predict an increased value in the use of visual content within their company’s marketing strategy. That’s why it’s important to invest time in creating high-quality images.
Pro tip: post frequently and regularly update your cover photo to maintain engagement on your Facebook page.
5. Take 360-degree photos
360-degree photos let your audience examine images from different angles. These photos involve your audience by taking them behind the scenes and putting them at the center of the action.
Subscribers don’t need much time to look at a photo, while video content requires spending more time (the average duration of a Facebook video is 82 seconds). Putting people in the center of an action is key for increasing engagement.
6. Use mobile photos instead of stock photos
Although posting visual content is important for driving engagement, stock photos shouldn’t be used often. The main idea about stock photos is that they are made for different purposes, and every person can pay to get an image.
However, when various brands publish the same photo for different campaigns, people don’t pay attention to the message itself. When I worked as an SMM manager, it was easy to find out with the help of data that there was a decline in users’ engagement when posts included “artificial” (stock) photos.
Subscribers value original content. If you want to find a good solution, try taking mobile photos. While professional photo sessions cost money and effort, you can take photos on your phone with ease.
The only one thing you should pay attention to is an image size. Ideally, it should be 1200 x 628 px for Facebook.
7. Create viral video content
If you produce high-quality videos to post on your Facebook page, that’s great. If you can produce a viral video, you can expand your audience in several days with ease.
A video goes viral when it evokes emotions and people share the idea of it or it surprises them. Viral videos get likes, views, and a better reach, which helps to attract new subscribers.
Tips for helping a video go viral:
- Find useful and original info that hasn’t been published anywhere.
- Be brief.
- Pay attention to its visual part; visuals should be well-done.
- Ask participants to post the link on their profiles to drive traffic.
To make a viral video, you don’t need to spend money on its creation. GoPro ran a contest with the idea of finding heroes among everyday people. They posted a video about saving a small little life of a kitten, and it went viral so quickly! In fact, it’s still popular today.
8. Give live videos a try
Being in the center of the action is interesting, and live videos help brands interact with their subscribers. It’s a good way to connect with followers in real time.
A new trend is live videos on Facebook. The good point is that Facebook promotes live videos and every subscriber gets a notification that the page is live. Thus, more people can join your page to watch the video.
Going live often helps to keep an audience engaged. In fact, Facebook live videos are watched 3x longer than regular videos.
Moreover, you can announce your live session in advance so that your subscribers will be able to join the stream–just post a notification and pin it in your news feed.
Some brands use live videos as a weekly show. For example, Benefit goes live every week to give various tips to their subscribers.
9. Interact with your audience
The more people you reach on Facebook, the better. If you can grab your potential audience’s attention and hold it, you can increase organic reach. That’s why it’s important to make these people feel valued and important, and the key is to interact with them.
How do you interact with your audience?
- Reply to their comments and request the faster you can.
- Leave likes and comments.
- Handle negative feedback.
- Suggest special promo codes that give some benefits (discounts, free downloads, etc.).
Facebook should be used for establishing a connection between a brand and clients as people feel comfortable to communicate online. Litographs successfully engages with their audience by replying to comments and solving problems.
If you interact with your audience, they will be more likely to trust your brand.
10. Run contests
Contests are a win-win Facebook marketing strategy. They engage your audience, attract new subscribers, and collect data.
The most effective Facebook contests:
- Like and share.
- Tag a friend.
- App contests.
You don’t need to spend much money to run contests. It’s you who determines the costs for your campaign, so stick within it!
11. Insert message bots
People value their time, and they want to get answers to their questions or requests as quickly as possible. If you want to gain your fans’ respect, you need to moderate your page 24/7 as the speed of your interaction matters.
Although it’s impossible for a human being to stay online all day long, there are some digital technologies that help to improve the quality of communication on social media.
Running Facebook fan pages, you can insert message bots to connect with your users.
Message bots are aimed at chatting automatically with users which helps them get answers without waiting much. If you can establish a good connection with your subscribers, they will never forget you.
Any motivation needed? Pay attention to the list of companies that use chatbots successfully. Want to take it to another level? Consider trying out some Facebook messenger advertising techniques like chatbots.
12. Leave comments on your page
Commenting is a way to attract new subscribers.
When you reply to your fans’ comments fast, you earn their trust. When you reply to comments, you earn trust of your subscribers and they return over and over again. People leave “likes” on your comments, and they get interested in your brand page as you earn their trust and respect.
People love reading comments. It’s always interesting to observe how brands overcome provocative messages and deal with the negative feedback.
So if you find a mention about your brand out of your page, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and solve a problem. After all, it’s a good way to cope with negative feedback, help people feel valued and, therefore, earn trust.
13. Analyze Facebook insights
On average, organic reach of content published on brand Facebook pages is declining, and the best way to understand how to improve it is to analyze your audience, its needs, and what your fans are looking for.
Use Facebook insights, a business page analytics tool that allows you to evaluate what you’ve done good or wrong.
If you know how to analyze this data the right way, you can understand what posts are better for your audience, when to post, and what results you have.
Export data, find what posts work well for your fans, learn something new and useful, and rely on your fans’ preferences as your audience’s satisfaction is a key to organic reach.
The Wrap Up
Running Facebook brand pages requires time and effort, but you can achieve success even being on a tight budget. To get a better organic reach, you need to understand what your audience likes, and it’s a key to implementing the right methods that will help to boost fans’ engagement.
Key Takeaways:
- Analyze your audience to post what they crave for
- Pay attention to the Facebook News Feed algorithm changes
- Create valuable visual content
Although there are many methods to improve organic reach, you need to give a try to different ones and, therefore, identify a perfect strategy for your brand. Follow trends and stay creative while running Facebook fan pages.