Most users want to share their updates with the widest audience. But for business pages, post reach is usually one of the KPIs. The problem is that organic reach for Facebook business pages has recently decreased. The same refers to the pages of individual users. What happened and how to increase the visibility of your business page updates in the News Feed? Find out everything you should know about the News Feed and how to stand out from the crowd.
How The News Feed Works
Facebook News Feed is a list of updates on a Facebook home page of a user. A typical one includes status updates, videos, photos, likes, and shares from people, groups, and pages a user follows. More information about how it works can be found here. Let’s focus on two important aspects of how the News Feed is formed.
Fierce Competition
Visibility in the News Feed is very competitive. Consider the following data:
Your business page is one of the 65 million ones on Facebook, so your updates can easily get lost in the posts from the user’s friends, groups, and advertisers.
Basically, you compete for the place in the first few dozen of slots that are likely to be browsed by a user. The good news is that viewership has increased significantly over last ten years. An average user spends 700 minutes per month on Facebook.
Post Relevance
Another point is that Facebook is struggling to show its users most relevant posts. The system ensures that people can control what they get, so Facebook allows its users to teach the News Feed what they would like to see. The algorithm aims to select the best content out of thousands of options. To put it simply, Facebook estimates
- How the user is interested in a particular post creator,
- How the post performs among the others,
- What type of content it is,
- How new the publication is.
The more engaging your content is, the more likely it will win the competition and appear in the News Feed of your target audience. Facebook provides a detailed explanation on what increased content sharing means for businesses. The company constantly updates its News Feed algorithm. The detailed history of its change is given here.
How To Increase Your Business Page Visibility?
Fortunately, there is something businesses can do to. The simplest winning strategy is to create and share interesting, unique, and engaging content. It should resonate with your audience, so avoid self-promotion, boring staff, and non-original publications. Of course, there are much more details to think over.
Your strategy will depend on what your goals and objectives are. Another factor to consider is the budget you can allocate. For example, here is a case study that demonstrates how it is possible to grow sales, decrease the number of inactive subscribers, and engage the target audience without using paid promotion methods. On the other hand, it is not surprising that paid campaigns also demonstrate good results (check out this example of using sponsored posts on Facebook along with dynamic remarketing).
From our experience, it makes sense to combine both free and paid options to reach better results.
Free Options
You can rather successfully compete for a place in the News Feeds of your target audience by employing these free hints:
1. Cooperate with opinion leaders and popular publishers
Facebook shows the posts from publishers the users consider interesting, e.g. they like, share, and comment their posts. In other words, you should interact with your audience to ensure that they are engaged in your content. You can also find brand ambassadors who will share content in the benefit of your business.
2. Post frequently
Although you should not spam your subscribers, the more posts you publish, the more likely your potentials and clients will see your message. Typically, Facebook features the most recent stories. However, if a user goes offline for a week, for example, he or she will see older posts that were ranked high.
3. Create posts easy to interact with
The algorithm assesses content to check whether it is interesting to others. The more engaging the post is, the higher exposure it will get. It is also a good idea to add a call to action, e.g. ask a question to start a discussion, conduct a survey, offer a free quote, etc.
4. Work on types of content your target audience enjoys
It’s worth mentioning that Facebook matches users to the types of posts they like the most. If you know your audience well, you can create post types they want to see. If you target a broad audience, it is a good idea to mix different kinds of content and analyze what works out for your subscribers.
Note: If you use one of the newest Facebook products, your content will rank higher. The company does so to ensure that more people interact with that product. For instance, when the Live video was launched, Facebook highly ranked posts with Live video.
Paid Options
Many Experts Agree that it makes sense to treat Facebook like a platform for paid ads. They even warn businesses that organic reach may arrive at zero with time. With the right targeting, you can build an audience of fans to reach them with carefully prepared content. However, when you advertise, you should go beyond the basics and use the vast targeting capabilities provided by Facebook.
Ads appear in the News Feed along with other posts. The tricky part is that they do not replace naturally visible posts; rather, get injected in between of them. It is important to keep in mind that Facebook limits the number of ads displayed to its users to maximize the likelihood that people will click.
To create an effective Facebook ad campaign, follow these actionable tips:
1. Prepare A Great Offer
People like buying things, but they often do not like when someone is selling these things to them. In other words, avoid direct sales and try to help people instead. Naturally, this approach may not work out in e-commerce in the way it is. So, work an extra mile and ensure that your clients and potentials feel that you take care of them.
2. Focus On Sales, Not Likes And Clicks
Some advertisers think that a level of user engagement shows how well your ads are performing. This is not usually the case. When you do not get sales, this means that either your ads, landing page, or targeting do not work correctly. You will start losing money if you will not stop the campaign and analyze what is wrong.
3. Consider Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
In the world of sales, advertisers often aim for short-term goals, e.g. quick sales. So, if the cost of a customer acquisition seems high to you, try planning for a longer period. You may find out that investing in further relationships with your potentials and clients is worthy.
4. Remember The Basics
Most Facebook marketing campaigns are complex ones, so you need to carefully complete all the required steps and then pay careful attention to details. For instance, start by splitting your ad into different categories, then optimize every element of your campaign, stick to your strategy, and test everything throughout the way.
5. Pay Close Attention To Goal-setting
This is something that business owners and marketers often overlook. A Facebook ad campaign requires clear, measurable goals or else you will not be able to understand whether you are doing fine or not. We recommend to start with the major goal and then break it into smaller ones.
Final Thoughts
The reach drop is a problem that businesses struggle with, while Facebook recommends them to pay closer attention to interacting with their fans. You should keep in mind these pieces of advice:
- Add social context to your ads, so they drive more recall and higher online sales lift.
- Have more fans and brand advocates, so you will increase the credibility of your business.
- Learn more about your clients and potentials and better your products and services.
Keep in mind that like any other type of media, Facebook is more effective for business when you employ its paid tools. This is how you are more likely to reach broader audiences in the News Feed with greater accuracy, as compared with organic traffic.
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* Adapted lead image: 
Public Domain, pixabay.com via getstencil.com