Reclaiming Your Organic Reach on Facebook in Four Easy Steps

Facebook’s recent changes to its news feed has resulted in increasing numbers of users noticing a decline in their organic reach. In fact Adam Mosseri, vice president of product management at Facebook, noted that it began to “shift ranking to make the news feed more about connecting with people and less about consuming media in isolation.”

This change in Facebook’s algorithm has make it harder for page owners to attract users organically, without the use of advertising. However, there are steps page administrators can take to increase engagement and reclaim lost organic reach.

According to an article in Search Engine Journal, there are four key things to try to reclaim lost organic reach:

1. Post Engaging Content like Webinars and Video Series

Posting engaging content that’s video based helps to increase organic reach because statistically, video content reaches a broader audience. In fact, native Facebook video content reaches almost 17 percent of audiences so consider producing videos specifically for Facebook on “how-to” topics specific to your industry.

Sharing blog posts on your page is not enough to draw organic views. Instead, find ways to repurpose those blog posts into new mediums to engage more viewers. For example, you can use the information in the blog as information for an instructional webinar — or even a multi-part webinar series. Consider using content your viewers will want to come back to reference.

Facebook Live videos generate even more interactions and the tool is not just for celebrities. Business-to-business companies are taking advantage of this tool by running live webinars and keynote presentations on trending topics.

2. Post Less Frequently

It might seem counterintuitive, but posting less often can increase your organic reach. Instead of posting several times a day, instead focus on posting just once per day by using the highest quality content to build brand awareness to generate boosts in reach.

As an example, you can curate content specifically for Facebook that is in line with your brand and messaging from other publications to post on your page that will draw organic viewers.

3. Engage with Your Audience — Comments Count

To build organic reach and longer lasting engagements, it is important to focus on reach in addition to interactions. In fact, the more natural engagements such as “likes” and comments help your page rank higher.

Spending time each day to engage with your communities also results in a stronger, more loyal following which naturally results in lasting organic reach.

4. Optimize Organic Audiences with Targeting

The more you can do to optimize and target your audiences will result in a more powerful reach. You can do this by using a free tool offered by Facebook for this very purpose.

To access this tool when posting, just before you hit the “publish” button, click on the globe icon to the left of the “boost post” tab. Then you can choose the demographics option which allows you to limit your audience by factors such as age, gender, location and languages. You can narrow audiences even further by choosing “more demographics” and selecting factors such as education level and relationship status.

Using these four steps can help you gain organic reach and with two billion people using Facebook each week, gaining organic reach should be one of your top social media goals. To test if these tips help grow your audiences, try them one at a time and measure them against your current approaches so you can continue using all, or just those tips that provide the greatest return. In addition to building organic reach, you will draw your audience in with reliable content they will look forward to engaging with.

What have you found to be effective in increasing organic reach and impact with the new algorithms?

Our social media experts at Scott Public Relations can you develop strategies to build audiences on Facebook and other social media platforms.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with a PR, marketing or social media campaign, contact Scott Public Relations.

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