20 secrets and techniques to growing your Fb natural attain

Facebook's organic reach has decreased. Descent.

In the past, posting a link on your Facebook or Instagram page could generate hundreds of clicks. No more.

Social media recommendations have stagnated around 5 percent of all data traffic for years.

The average Facebook post reaches a little more than 5 percent of your followers.

The encouraging news is that the reach of social media is still enormous.

There are more than 3.5 billion active social media users.

However, reaching this huge audience is harder than ever.

What's the answer? That's exactly what we're going to get into in this article.

Let's begin.

What exactly is organic reach on Facebook

Organic reach is the number of people who see your content without paid distribution. It includes people who see your posts in their own feed or whose friends have interacted with you.

Paid reach is the people who see your content as a result of paid promotions. It is influenced by your ad targeting options and can also affect organic reach.

But it is not that easy.

The reach of your content has a lot to do with engagement. As many people like, respond, comment, or share your post.

Engagement rates are way up – but organic reach is way down.

And it's still on a rapid decline.

Why don't our posts appear more often?

Let me explain.

Why Facebook's organic reach is decreasing

There are two main reasons Facebook's organic reach continues to decline:

1. Further content: More content is being published than can be shown in the news feeds. More than 510,000 comments and 293,000 statuses are posted on Facebook every minute.
2. Personalized news feeds: Facebook offers the most relevant content to every user. In order to increase engagement and optimize the user experience, the content is tailored to the individual interests of each user.

With this decline in organic reach, can companies continue to thrive? Absolutely.

You can still get tons of traffic from Facebook.

The network's ad platform has cushioned the damage for those who made the most of it. The number of advertisers has so far exceeded 9 million.

Knowing this, should marketers really be concerned about organic reach?

Wouldn't we be better off focusing on Facebook ads?

Yes and yes.

Here's why.

Why you need to think about decreasing Facebook's organic reach

Organic reach is important for several reasons.

Reason 1: Drive more leads and organic conversions

Many people use social media solely for brand awareness.

That's fine – but there remains so much opportunity on the table to get real results for your business.

Lead generation is one of the missed opportunities.

It's also the linchpin of any successful marketing campaign.

You need to attract potential buyers and guide them down your sales funnel. If you do this organically, it won't cost you anything but time and effort.

Again, the price of converting these potential buyers into actual buyers will be lower.

That's because the results of an organic campaign are more likely to lead to snowballs. This means that more campaigns will add context to your campaigns as more people engage with your content.

The more organic reach you have, the better your lead generation and conversion funnels will work.

Reason 2: Reduce the cost per click for paid campaigns

Yes, Facebook's ad product is one of the most intuitive and impressive we've seen.

And yes, the sophistication of the audience options is every marketer's dream.

AdExpresso analyzed over $ 100 million in advertising spend and determined the average advertising costs for the full year 2016.

They found the following:

As you can see, if you master the other variables, the average CPC for ads can be very low.

But here's the deal:

You might as well spend a fortune on Facebook ads and see no return.

This means that organic reach is vital in order to increase the effectiveness of your ads and increase your advertising costs.

Reason 3: There are tons of new (underutilized) Facebook features

In the past, your options on Facebook have pretty much been posts, videos, and ads. Now there are tons of new features like Facebook Stories, Facebook Watch, Facebook Groups and Facebook Live.

Many companies do not make optimal use of these features. This offers an opportunity to encourage organic traffic by filling the void.

With that in mind, let's take a look at how Facebook's newsfeed algorithm works to display content.

Then we'll look at some strategies to increase the organic reach of your page.

Understanding Facebook's newsfeed algorithm

The Facebook algorithm has changed drastically in the past few years. The introduction of reactions and the "Why do I see this post?" Changed Facebook's decision about which posts to show users.

Facebook uses hundreds of thousands of factors to decide which posts to display in a user's news feed.

Who you interact with, what type of media and what popularity the post has are used as ranking signals

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is now prioritizing posts that create “meaningful interactions” and posts from friends and family.

There are other detailed data points that come into play:

• As recently the article was published.
• How often the publisher publishes content.
• The number of likes, comments, and approvals in the post.
• How many times has the user interacted with the page where the update was posted?
• Previous user interaction with the same post type.
• Negative feedback on the post.
• How useful the post is.

The list goes on, but these factors give us enough food for thought.

What is Facebook's ultimate goal for newsfeeds?

Like other platforms, Facebook cares the most about its users. She wants to continuously improve her experience with high quality, relevant content.

Excessive advertising does not fare well with users, so Facebook is cracking down on this type of content.

To top it off, Facebook is reducing traffic from publishers in favor of user-generated content.

So how can you increase Facebook's traffic if these algorithmic changes decrease your reach?

Let's take lessons at BuzzFeed.

They have an impressive Alexa Rank of 147.

Facebook alone accounts for about 37% of data traffic.

What is BuzzFeed doing right? In addition to posting engaging content on Facebook, they also spend millions of dollars on Facebook ads.

Now most people don't have a lot of money like BuzzFeed.

So we're going the smarter way that doesn't require large investments for a small business owner.

Before we dive into the secrets to increasing your organic reach, there are five things you should absolutely avoid doing on your Facebook page.

1. Don't automate everything

It's a social platform and your brand needs to have a human touch. Don't just schedule your latest blog links and product updates. Publish your team photos like Zappos.

Social media marketing should show off your fun or creative side like Nutella.

Or share inspirational graphics like me.

2. Don't just promote products and services

Facebook is based on interest, not on purpose. Not every update you send on your Facebook page should be promotional. Rather, 80% of your updates should be social. Otherwise, users won't hesitate to click the Other than button on your page (just a click away).

Instead, use Facebook to build a community. Create value and start conversations with your audience.

It's best to vary your posts so that they contain different types of content:

• Brand story posts
• Authority building post
• Perform nursing duties
• Personal contributions

3. Don't try to defraud the Facebook ecosystem

Buy 5,000 likes for $ 5. Use clickbait headings. Bombard your fans with 10 bad quality updates in an hour.

It's a waste of time and money.

Facebook takes serious action against spammers. Stick to the Facebook code and be in good hands.

Not only that, these manipulative tactics bring no real value to your business. In fact, they are likely to hurt you.

AdExpresso conducted a paid experiment in which they published an identical video on three of their fan sites. They then paid to improve each post.

The result?

No engagement was found on the two pages they bought likes from, even after Facebook automatically deleted the paid likes.

4. Don't build a fan base that you cannot sustain

The brutal truth about having a large following – no matter how targeted – is that your reach will automatically decrease.

This means that you will have to put in extra work to create content that is relevant and useful for different audience segments.

Would you rather have a small but very engaged audience or a large and unresponsive one?

It's a no-brainer.

How to track and analyze your current organic reach on Facebook

Now that you know what not to do, it's time to work on what you can do to improve your organic reach on Facebook.

The first step is to determine exactly where your shortcomings lie. We are going to collect some important metrics to measure your performance.

Without this diagnosis, you will not know where to focus your efforts.

Let's jump in.

Step 1: Export Insights data from Facebook

First, click on the Insights tab in the left sidebar of your Facebook company page.

At the top of the Insights page is a button that allows you to export your data at both the page and post levels.

A window will open with three different options for your insights:

Choose your option and click "Export Data". Your data will be saved in an Excel file.

Step 2: Dive deeper to publish metrics

In my experience, post-level metrics are more revealing than page metrics.

Page metrics provide a great panoramic view of your performance. Post metrics provide a more granular view of how users interact with your content.

And that really makes the difference.

For a deeper view, go to "Posts" then "Post Types".

Based on the data you have collected, you can determine the following:

• Which posts have the highest organic reach?
• What types of posts do your audience prefer?
• Number of likes in each post

These will give you a good guideline for starting an effective content strategy.

Step 3: Optimize your data and choose only the metrics that you need

Not all data points are useful.

Browse through them and pick the ones that make sense to you – and which can vary based on your industry and social media goals.

Here is the data that will tell you the most:

• Organic reach
• engagement
• Link clicks
• Number of people who gave negative feedback

Now that you've analyzed your organic reach, it's time to make some improvements.

20 strategies to increase Facebook's organic reach

Remember that every industry and audience is different. I currently do not recommend implementing all of these strategies. Instead, look at your data and see where you can make the most of improvements. Then select a handful of strategies that you want to try.

Keep what works, leave what doesn't and try a different strategy. Rinse and repeat.

1. Build your presence and authority

I know what you're thinking.

If the organic reach decreases as the target group increases, what is the value for increasing your presence?

Well, having a large presence has some advantages.

• You can add social context to your ads, which will make them cheaper and more effective.
• You get better posts and page insights to tailor your marketing efforts. This includes both demographic and psychographic data.
• Your perceived influence will increase which increases your credibility score.

Increasing your presence is not about increasing your page likes. The number of likes on your page is not an indication of the performance of your content.

What matters is that you have enough authority to command your audience to act. This means that they will deal with your content for less.

Here's what you can do to increase engagement:

Attract the Right People to Visit the Facebook Page

Random fans are useless.

They don't get involved and don't have a positive impact on your marketing campaigns.

For this reason, I don't recommend growing your Facebook page at the expense of building an audience.

You want people who are precisely tailored to your business interests.

That way, the content you post will become more relevant to them. In return, it has a greater chance of appearing on their news feeds.

What can you do to build a target audience?

Have a strong brand presence

If your brand is watered down, chances are your audience will too.

What you want is a brand image that resides in the minds and hearts of your audience.

Constantly reinforce your message, publish content that is relevant to your business, and always stay consistent.

Use Audience Insights to create a target person specifically for Facebook

Previously, we went through tracking your page and posted insights. The same information can be used to construct your persona.

Gender, age, background, location, and occupation are black and white data points that you can collect.

You can then do it with more meaningful information like:

• What are their pain points?
• What are your interests?
• How do you feel about your company or your industry?
• What are your objections and how will you address them?

Target this demographic when increasing or promoting your posts

You can create a custom audience that is modeled on your ideal person. This way, you will be more likely to reach these people when you improve or promote a post.

Later, I'll walk you through paid campaign best practices.

Make sure that your like campaigns are very targeted

I'm all for more likes – but not if it's just a vanity metric.

You want quality over quantity.

There are a few ways you can attract people who are interested in your brand:

In addition to campaigning for your target audience, you can also invite people who liked your individual posts to like your page.

First, add your page to the search bar.

Select one of your posts and click on the group of people who liked it.

This is a gold mine for finding people who already have an affinity with your content.

Browse to see how many people liked your posts but didn't like your page.

Invite them to do it.

9 out of 10 times they will.

Add integrations and customizations to your page

You can integrate your Facebook Page with other apps, tools, and platforms. These can improve the usability of your site and increase your marketing efforts.

Here are some of the customizations you can include:

• Custom tabs
• E-mail entry forms
• Podcasts
• Video player
• quiz
• Survey
• Homepage
• Apps for running competitions
• Schedule apps
• Blog and RSS feeds
• Ecommerce tabs

Cross-promotion of other social media platforms with Facebook

If you've built a sizable following elsewhere, you can use these platforms to grow your Facebook Page.

Here's what you can do:

• Leave a link to your Facebook page on your other social accounts bio
• Place clickable social icons on your cover pictures
• Submit your Facebook page to your other networks and ask them to get involved

2. Increase Facebook's organic reach by posting evergreen content

Too many people are not strategic with their social media content.

Whatever your goals for your Facebook Page – be it to generate revenue or drive traffic – evergreen content is the most powerful tool available to you.

Freshness isn't just Google's ranking factor.

The life of a post in the Facebook newsfeed also depends on how up-to-date it is. Publishing timeless content will be useful to your audience for a long time. You will continue to occupy yourself with your contribution.

Make sure that users know that they can revisit evergreen posts that they have liked and engaged in in the past.

This leads to an increase in engagement and Facebook ensures that your post gets more dissemination and shows up in feeds for longer.

I urge you to improve the durability of posts with evergreen content.

The above evergreen post appeared 18 hours after it was published.

That is an extremely long lifespan!

For posts that perform this well, you can re-use them to make sure you maximize their reach.

Here's a simple process for reusing evergreen content:

• Choose posts that have performed extremely well and will add value to your audience long after they are published. Write them down in a table.
• Approach this content from a different angle. Put a new spin on it or change the context. Note that video content can outperform the same textual content and vice versa. The key is to test what will resonate best with your audience.
• Publish your reused content at different times. This ensures that some fresh eyes can see and engage with your newly revamped content.

But what if you don't want to go through the hassle of creating and reusing your own posts?

Curate other people's evergreen content

Content curation is not about viewing someone else's work as your own.

It's about collecting contributions from the internet and sharing them with your network.

But it's a little bit more than just stumbling across a post, liking it, and hitting the share button.

Instead, treat the curation process as if you were posting your own content. Spend some time reviewing and analyzing multiple posts on the same topic and delivering them to your audience on a consistent release schedule.

Prime example: Problogger regularly publishes a summary of the blogging posts.

As they do this on their blog, you can adopt the same concept for your Facebook page.

Here are some examples of evergreen content using curation-style posts:

• Video tutorials
• Prescription contributions
• credentials
• Interviews
• "How To" postings
• questions and answers
• Thought pieces
• Lists
• Checklists
• Industry-specific statistics
• Weekly summaries
• Company mentioned
• Industry news

How can you make sure your audience engages with this content?

Make sure that your submissions include all convincing tests and considerations.

Developing a content strategy is half the battle.

You still need to make sure that you create the types of posts that will get your audience to share and engage.

Some tips for creating posts that capture and inspire action:

• Use solid graphics
• Don't be too formal
• Keep it short and snappy
• Ask a relevant question
• Be human
• Have a clear call to action (I would be careful if I just ask people to like or comment)

3. Create a Facebook group for your most engaged audience members

Facebook is about building communities. A close-knit group is the closest you can reach on social media.

A whopping 400 billion people use Facebook groups.

You have two community options:

1. Start your own group.
2. Join an engaged and relevant group that serves your business goals.

We'll focus on number 1 as this is the best addition to your Facebook marketing arsenal.

You can use it to listen to and connect with your trademark attorneys.

Before we dive into the steps to building your group, let's talk about the reasons you might want to start your own group.

Most people reform groups:

• Your brand / business
• Your products / services
• A specific lifestyle, e.g. a book club or journal club
• Specific topics, e.g. a content marketing group

Of course, these are not your only options. As long as you can bring a group of people together for a common purpose, you are good to go.

I've found that the most valuable groups for businesses are those that are either brand specific or product specific.

Here's why.

You can use a brand group to build and maintain a community around your business. It is also a powerful tool for marketing your product / service.

Likewise, a product-specific group is designed to help customers get the most out of a product or service you offer.

It's about customer success, customer loyalty and loyalty.

You can have live coaching sessions, live Q&A, personal implementation feedback sessions, and accountability systems in your groups to ensure customers get the transformation they paid for.

Let's get to the steps to create a group.

Step 1. Create and name your group

Find the "Create Group" option to begin the process.

It's easy to find from your homepage.

After clicking this tab, you will be asked to name your group.

Step 2. Create a description

Write your value proposition in your group description and set clear rules for group publication.

Pro tip: Pin your regular fee to the top of the group feed. It will guide new members to act appropriately.

Also, set up your group's privacy settings properly.

Step 3. Invite engaging audience members to join

Depending on the type of group, you may need to provide incentives to attend.

For most groups, however, the promise of community and support is enough to get them on board.

However, if you need incentives, you can:

• Have an actual start for your group. Why not make it an event? You can set up an email capture form to add people to a notification list.
• Offer new members a welcome gift. It could be a coupon code, an e-book, or something related to your business.
• Offer a bonus referral gift to anyone who recruits other members.

Step 4. Ignite conversations that are relevant to your industry

Good conversations encourage engagement after engagement. Don't just promote or sell your content and products.

Other ways to increase engagement in Facebook groups:

• Consider giving active members of your group administrator / publisher status so they can promote the group.
• Live questions and answers
• Create challenges for group members

Step 5. Create a content strategy for your group

This can include creating content topics and instigating user-generated content campaigns. User-generated content results in 6.9 times more engagement than brand-generated content.

For example, you can set a specific topic or engagement topic for each day.

Melyssa Griffin's group does this very well:

Step 6. Moderate your posts

Moderate all posts in the group and have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to spam.

You want your group members to have the best experience possible, so get rid of the spammers quickly.

It's much easier to do this if you have what qualifies as spam in your group rules.

So that's it to set up a group.

However, I would like to warn you: Groups require an investment of time. You need to show up to welcome new members and encourage discussion.

As groups grow, so does engagement. At this point, you may want to break larger groups into smaller, more focused groups.

Some people completely shut down groups with tens of thousands of members because of poor engagement.

You do not want that.

4. Use Organic Post Targeting

Targeting isn't limited to Facebook ads.

You can target your organic posts to make sure they reach the right people.

While it's been a while, with the decrease in the organic reach of quality content, the feature has become more useful. You can target your mail to relevant customers based on their age and location.

Your contribution must appeal to at least 20 people. You could fall below this threshold if your site only has a few thousand fans.

Here are the steps to get started targeting.

Step 1: Activate the targeting function on your site

Go to General Settings to enable targeting through your Page Settings.

Schritt 2: Erstellen Sie Ihren Beitrag und passen Sie die Targeting-Optionen an

Stöbern Sie in Ihren Facebook Insights nach Daten über Ihre Zielgruppe und wählen Sie Targeting-Parameter basierend auf Ihren Zielen.

Wenn Sie Ihren Beitrag erstellen, klicken Sie unter Ihrem Seitennamen auf die Einstellung "Öffentlich". Daraufhin wird die Option zum Festlegen einer "eingeschränkten Zielgruppe" angezeigt.

Wählen Sie "Eingeschränkte Zielgruppe" und legen Sie das Alter und den Ort fest, den Sie erreichen möchten. Dies ist besonders nützlich für lokale Unternehmen oder Unternehmen mit mehreren Zielgruppen.

Schritt 3: Führen Sie mehrere gezielte Posts mit unterschiedlichen Parametern aus

Auf diese Weise können Sie testen, wie sich Ihre Inhalte für verschiedene Zielgruppen verhalten.

Schritt 4: Überprüfen Sie die Ergebnisse

Hüpfen Sie auf Facebook Insights und überprüfen Sie Ihre Ergebnisse. Hat der organisch ausgerichtete Beitrag eine bessere Leistung erbracht?

Vergleichen Sie diese Social-Media-Marketing-Ergebnisse mit Ihrer durchschnittlichen Engagement-Rate. Ermitteln Sie außerdem den Targeting-Parameter, der eine bessere Leistung erzielt.

Im Experiment des Social Media-Prüfers mit organischem Targeting schnitt eine kleinere Seite besser ab als eine größere Seite.

Die Ergebnisse variieren jedoch je nach Zielgruppe.

5. Posten Sie, wenn Ihre Konkurrenten schlafen

Wann ist die beste Zeit, um auf Facebook zu posten? Es gibt keine einfache Antwort.

Sie müssen berücksichtigen:

• Ihr Standort und der Ihres Publikums
• Ihr Zielgruppenprofil (Alter, Interessen, Beruf usw.)
• Die Art des Inhalts, den Sie erstellen
• Die Planungswerkzeuge, die Ihnen zur Verfügung stehen

CoSchedule meldet, dass die optimale Zeit zwischen 1 und 4 Uhr liegt.

Sie haben es sogar nach jedem Tag der Woche aufgeschlüsselt:

• Samstag und Sonntag von 12 bis 13 Uhr
• Donnerstag und Freitag von 13 bis 16 Uhr
• Mittwoch um 15 Uhr

Für die meisten Freigaben und Klicks wurden 1 PM, 3 PM und 9 AM als optimale Zeiten angegeben.

Hier sind ein paar weitere Studien und optimale Zeiten für jeden Medienvermarkter oder Geschäftsinhaber, um gute Inhalte optimal zu nutzen.

Kratzt euch schon am Kopf, oder? Posten Sie zu keinem dieser optimalen Zeiten blind.

Stöbern Sie in Ihren Facebook Insights. Finde heraus, wann deine Fans online sind.

Führen Sie dann Ihren eigenen Test durch.

Poste außerhalb der Hauptverkehrszeiten (18.00 – 08.00 Uhr) mit den maximal möglichen Fans online. Ihre Chancen, im Feed zu erscheinen, steigen, da andere Facebook-Seiten in diesem Zeitraum nicht veröffentlicht werden.

Hier sind die Ergebnisse, als Track Maven mit dieser Social-Media-Marketingstrategie getestet wurde.

Jon Loomer versuchte auch, Links außerhalb der Hauptverkehrszeiten zu veröffentlichen, und erzielte mit seiner organischen Reichweite positive Ergebnisse.

Die Gründe, warum diese Strategie effektiv ist (neben weniger Wettbewerb), sind:

• Wenn Sie ein internationales Publikum haben, werden Sie Fans in einer anderen Zeitzone erreichen.
• Wenn Ihr Beitrag ein höheres Engagement erhält, wird Facebook den Beitrag an mehr Ihrer Fans verteilen.

Es kann sogar dazu führen, dass die Aufrufe von Posts über den neueren Inhalt, der zu Spitzenzeiten veröffentlicht wird, verbessert werden.

Note: Mit Fan Page Karma können Sie die Social-Media-Marketing-Posting-Strategien Ihrer Branchenkonkurrenten überwachen.

6. Veröffentlichen Sie den Inhalt, den Ihre Benutzer mögen

Links funktionieren besser, um den Verkehr zu lenken. Manchmal.

Fred Alberti stellte fest, dass reine Links 82% mehr Seitenaufrufe generierten als Beiträge mit Fotos und Links in der Bildunterschrift.

Fotos sind bei Nutzern und damit bei Vermarktern zu einem unbeliebten Beitragstyp geworden.

Meine Empfehlung ist, alle Arten von Updates zu veröffentlichen, die Ihren Fans einen Mehrwert bieten, sei es Links, Bilder, Umfragen, Facebook Lives, Facebook Stories oder sogar Facebook Watch-Videos.

Bleiben Sie nicht bei einem Inhaltsformular in einem anderen, nur weil eine bestimmte Art von Post (derzeit) auf Facebook eine bessere Leistung erbringt. Genau wie Google Facebook seinen Algorithmus regelmäßig aktualisiert.

Analysieren Sie stattdessen Ihre Daten aus Facebook Insights, um die Art der Beiträge zu finden, die bei Ihrem Publikum Anklang finden.

Wenn Sie können, versuchen Sie, den Inhaltstypen, die Ihrem Publikum gefallen, einen Mehrwert zu bieten.

Sie können Ihr Publikum auch fragen, was es bevorzugt, und seine Wahl respektieren.

Erstellen Sie einfach eine Umfrage auf Ihrer Facebook-Seite:

Stellen Sie Ihre Frage.

Sie könnten von den Ergebnissen überrascht sein! Testen Sie neue Funktionen nicht, wenn sie herauskommen.

Facebook Watch zum Beispiel hat bei der Erstveröffentlichung eine Menge Verkehr ausgelöst, und viele Vermarkter nutzen es immer noch nicht!

7. Veröffentlichen Sie Videos nativ auf Facebook

In den letzten Jahren hat sich die Verlagerung auf Videoinhalte vollzogen.

Facebook Watch zeigt die besten 1,25 Milliarden monatlichen Nutzer an.

Facebook tendiert dazu, Video-Updates zu bevorzugen, was dazu führt, dass Medienvermarkter mehr Inhalte für Videoblog-Posts verwenden.

Native Videos sind einer der stärksten Performer im Newsfeed.

Das Video wird lautlos abgespielt, bis ein Benutzer darauf klickt. Es ist wichtig, dass Ihr Video vom ersten Bild an eine hohe Qualität aufweist. Es muss auch Aufmerksamkeit erregen, auch ohne Ton.

Hier sind einige Tipps für den Einstieg in Facebook-Videos.

Um die Videobetrachter weiter zu motivieren, können Sie eine Handlungsaufforderung (Call-to-Action, CTA) hinzufügen, um Ihre Website oder ein Ziel Ihrer Wahl zu besuchen. Dies kann im letzten Frame enthalten sein, oder Sie können das Video verbessern und die Anzeigen-CTA-Schaltflächen von Facebook verwenden.

AdExpresso stellte fest, dass "Weitere Informationen", "Jetzt einkaufen" und "Anmelden" beliebter sind.

You also get rich video insights, so you can find out what is working with your audience.

If you want, you can pin a video to the top of your videos tab on your Facebook page. Just click on “Feature this Video.”

BuzzFeed got 1.7 million views for a featured video.

The featured video also appears prominently below your About section. Social Media Examiner used it to promote their upcoming event.

You can also embed the video in a blog post. It’ll make for a good multimedia experience for your blog audience and it can also increase the engagement on the Facebook post.

But, can you embed videos from YouTube or should you upload them directly on Facebook?

Naturally, Facebook favors native uploads over embedded videos from YouTube or any other third party. A business owner should not be intimidated by this media marketing strategy.

This SEJ study was performed for two weeks on three Facebook pages – Search Engine Journal, Stunning and Interesting Facts, and Did You Know.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the numbers.

Native videos also offer a better user experience and are usually cheaper to promote.

You can use native videos for Q&A’s, product launches, and co-creating with other targeted users.

8. Test Your Posting Frequency

How often should you post on Facebook? Es hängt davon ab.

Massive websites like Huffington Post, Telegraph, and The New York Times publish a huge amount of content every day. They also push their content aggressively on Facebook.

For the average brand, this isn’t realistic.

Don’t be tempted to post 20 times a day.

Engagement actually decreases when you post too often.

The rule of thumb is to keep it between 1-3 posts/day, depending on your following.

Here are a few takeaways on the frequency of posting for social media marketing on Facebook:

• Avoid posting more than the recommended one to three times a day. It can overwhelm your audience.
• You can post more often at widely different times if you’ve got an international audience. That’ll help you reach out to different segments of your audience (who live in a different time zone or log in to Facebook occasionally).
• Always post high-quality content. Engage your audience with humor, inspirational, and educational content.
• You can be successful, even with a higher posting frequency, by providing great content variety. Mix your posting schedule and post types.
• Test your page frequency. Only your data can reveal your audience’s exact response.

9. Partner with Other Facebook Pages in Your Niche

Awhile ago, I shared a case study on how I used Instagram to earn $332,640 in 3 months. I struck deals with Instagram influencers (having a huge following) to post links to my landing pages.

You can use a similar strategy on Facebook.

I reached out to Facebook Pages having less than 30,000 likes, for my Nutrition Secrets project. I offered a shoutout for shoutout deal to Facebook pages in my niche (about 1 in 10 pages accept such requests).

This helped me to increase the number of likes on the Nutrition Secrets Facebook Page. Any business owner will appreciate the simplicity of this media marketing strategy.

Similarly, have a look at the Facebook pages of media websites like Huffington Post and Elite Daily. They both have millions of Facebook fans and a similar audience (for certain types of content that they publish).

They share each other’s blog posts on Facebook regularly. This boosts post views for both parties while providing good content they didn’t need to create. This is simply smart media marketing.

Here is an example of a Huffington Post blog post shared by Elite Daily’s Facebook page.

And, here’s an Elite Daily blog post shared by Huffington Post.

Wired and Refinery29 also seem to have a similar partnership.

To achieve good results from this strategy, you’ll need to strike deals with pages that have tens of thousands of likes.

This means you need to have a solid influencer outreach strategy.

Here’s what you need to consider:

• Is your target influencer the right fit, contextually? Your brand needs to resonate with their audience. Promoting your brand to a misaligned audience won’t have an impact.
• How much reach do they have? Your influencer doesn’t need millions of followers. They just need a solid enough reach to make a difference.
• How much authority do they have? It’s critical that your influencer has enough influence to inspire action among their audience.
• What’s your leverage? If you’re targeting someone with a massive following and authority, you need to have something just as valuable to offer.

10. Use Word-of-Mouth Marketing to Grow Your Brand

There’s no better way to generate buzz for your brand than to turn your customers, employees, and fans into advocates.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the practice of leveraging devout fans to spread the word about your business.

Think about brands like Apple, Microsoft, and Nike.

They are known for their die-hard fans who constantly promote their products and content.

Der beste Teil?

Most do it without any paid incentive.

You, too, can leverage word-of-mouth marketing.

Hier sind ein paar Ideen:

1. Reach out to the right people. Engaging your employees is one of the most effective ways of cultivating a culture of advocacy. Give them a reason to rave about your business!
2. Offer rewards and loyalty points to customers.
3. Give referral bonuses for recruiting more people into the network.
4. Have top-notch customer service. You can use Facebook Messenger bots to communicate and provide value to customers.
5. Create special brand content that your advocates can share with their networks in real-time.
6. Always measure the effectiveness of your advocacy program. You can track sales from referral links, engagement on branded content, and the overall performance of your advocates.

11. Put Your Email List to Work

Do you ever wonder how I receive hundreds of shares and comments on every blog post I write?

It’s triggered by my email subscribers.

I simply email them, informing them about my new post. They kick off the interaction and sharing on every post.

Jay Baer shows us the similarities between an email list and Facebook fans.

So, how can you inspire social actions from email?

Simple social media marketing suggests starting by adding Facebook share buttons to your email newsletters. Some email platforms, like Mail Chimp, make this easy.

Otherwise, you will need to create an HTML version of your email and create custom code for the share buttons.

Hier ist wie:

Convince and Convert further recommends sending out your popular and interesting status updates to your email list on the same day.

This increases reactions and comments on the post and drives engagement on your Facebook page.

You can also combine this email list with the Facebook group strategy.

Ask your subscribers to join exciting conversations on your exclusive Facebook group.

Killer Strategy to Increase Facebook Shares

Say you already have a few hundred social media shares on your post. How would you like to increase the number of shares to a thousand?

You need to plan a strategic email outreach campaign to influencers, transitioning from just a good content strategy to boost post views.

The guys at Vero devised such an outreach for their email marketing best practices guide.

Das Ergebnis?

They have 10,000+ shares on the guide.

12. Run Contests to Drive Facebook Organic Reach

Facebook contests are a simple way to increase your presence quickly.

But it’s a little more than just luring fans with a free gift.

Here’s what it entails:

Step #1: Set a Goal For Your Contest

Do you want to increase engagement? Grow your fan base? Generate more leads?

Whatever you decide, ensure that it is specific and measurable.

Step #2: Select What Type of Contest You’ll Run

If your goal is to generate leads, then your entry method should include a mechanism to capture those leads, for example, an email grab.

If your goal is to grow your Facebook fan base, you can require participants to follow and like your page to enter the contest.

Do you see how your method of entry should be tailored to your goal?

Step #3: Determine the Rules of Entry

Before you do so, be sure to check out Facebook’s guidelines for running contests and challenges.

You’ll still be required to set your own rules for the contest.

Simply write up a brief letting participants know how the winner will be chosen, who’s eligible to enter, and the details of the prize.

Step #4: Decide How to Select Winners

With most contests, the winner is usually chosen randomly.

If your promotion is a challenge, then you will need someone or a group of people to judge the entries. Alternatively, you can have a voting system to pick a winner.

Step #5: Choose a Prize and Develop a Promotion Strategy

This is where most brands fail miserably.

If you don’t pick your prize carefully and promote your contest, there’s a good chance it will flop.

Always pick a prize that is relevant to your business so you avoid attracting people who are in it just for the freebie.

Here are some ideas for promoting your contest:

13. Share Posts From Your Facebook Page on Your Facebook Profile

This strategy is for avid Facebook users. You should have at least 1,000+ friends on your personal Facebook profile to drive significant results.

The strategy is simple to boost post views.

You first share a post on your Facebook page. Then, you share it from the page on your personal Facebook profile.

WPChronicles increased their reach from 5 people to 134, by using this strategy.

Keep in mind, this strategy isn’t scalable and you might annoy your friends if you do it to much.

However, you can use it occasionally for posts that add value to your Facebook friends.

Pro tip: If you just started your Facebook page, you can quickly build your first 100 fans and get social proof. Just use the “Invite Friends” feature.

This feature can also be used to grow your Facebook page from your email list. It isn’t available to all Facebook pages, though.

Using it is simple. Upload your contacts from MailChimp, Constant Contact, or any other of the email services. Facebook will find them and ‘suggest’ that they like your page.

14. Drive Organic Facebook Traffic With Hashtags (Used Carefully)

We’re all familiar with hashtags and how they work.

But what’s the deal with them on Facebook?

Do they have impact on a post’s reach?

Let’s see.

BuzzSumo analyzed more than 1 billion Facebook posts from over 30 million pages.

Their study seems to agree with the general consensus that Facebook users are prone to hashtag fatigue.

Posts with hashtags performed worse than those without.

Does that mean that marketers shouldn’t use hashtags on Facebook at all? Nicht genau.

There’s a lot of utility in Facebook hashtags.

It’s a matter of experimenting with relevant ones to see what works in your industry and for your audience.

They should also be used in moderation — one to two hash tags maximum.

Why so little?

Post Planner reported interactions are highest when one to two hashtags are used.

While the consensus is that you shouldn’t hashtag everything, Facebook is still built to accommodate their use.

This means that you can get quite a bit of functionality out of them without adding hashtags to all your posts.

Here’s how.

Create Your Own Hashtags

There’s no special protocol for creating hashtags.

Anyone can do it.

I recommend making your hashtags unique to your brand so it doesn’t get confused with anyone else’s. It’s also smart to use the same branding style hashtags on all social media platforms so there’s familiarity across channels.

Profi-Tipp: Use your branded hashtags as a metric to track your brand equity on Facebook. Their popularity will give you a good indication of how many people are buzzing about your business at a given time.

You can also point your audience to the URL’s of specific hashtags so they can participate in the relevant conversations.

Use Hashtags to Make Your Facebook Group Easier to Navigate

Facebook creates a unique URL for each hashtag used. This means that you can use them to search for content.

This is particularly useful in groups when you don’t want evergreen content to be buried. Simply hashtag them so users can continue to refer to these content pieces by conducting a quick hashtag search.

Zum Beispiel: If you create content themes like I’ve recommended, your users can find all published content for each theme by searching for the unique URL.

Take Advantage of Facebook Trending Topics

Ever heard of newsjacking?

It’s when someone piggybacks on a trend to gain exposure for their brand.

We’ve seen it is best to use hashtags sparingly.

But if there’s ever a prime time to use them, it’s when they link to a trending topic. This way, you tap into the traffic and increase your exposure.

I must warn you: This strategy requires caution. You don’t want to be hopping on a trend that may do you more harm than good.

15. Go Against the Grain to Stand Out

Hör mal zu:

A big piece of the organic reach puzzle is competition.

You have to fight for the attention of your audience.

Want to know the best way to always be ahead of your competitors?

Find your differentiating factor and flaunt it.

Both your visual and written content should stand out.

Some pro tips for your visual content:

• Avoid blues and grays at all costs. These colors are dominant in Facebook’s theme which means you’ll morph into a user’s news feed. You want to use colors that will stop someone in their tracks. Red, yellow, and orange are great options.
• Create multiple visuals per post and A/B test to see which one performs better. After you’ve conducted several tests for your posts, you’ll begin to see a pattern emerge. Your audience likely responds to a few designs better than the rest.
• Add call-to-action buttons on the actual image. This is because you want as many visual cues as possible to let users know that they should “Click Here.”
• Don’t use stock photos. Transparency and authenticity matter on Facebook. Create your own images to humanize your brand and share visuals your audience can connect with.
• Capture and keep attention with short captions on your visuals. Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement.

• Ask questions. Posts with a question have higher engagement than those without.

16. Take Advantage of New Facebook Features

Facebook’s constant app updates are no secret.

The changes come fast and frequently.

But here’s the thing:

They may fly under your radar if you don’t make it a priority to stay informed. That’s because new features are almost always released in different segments of the platform at different times.

You can take advantage of these updates.

When you get in on them early, you get the early mover’s advantage. This means that you can master it faster than anyone else and tap into the new capabilities for the benefit of your business.

Some recent updates that provide golden opportunities:

• Facebook Messenger Bots: You can use these to engage with users and persuade them with targeted messenger sequences.
• 360-degree Photos and Videos: This gives you the ability to capture a 360, panoramic view. You can use this to showcase the human element of your brand by capturing group shots, events, workspaces, and more.
• More Intuitive and Flexible Video: Users no longer have to manually tap to play a video. In addition to the autoplay update, you can now watch a video while still scrolling through your news feed. The video will automatically minimize at the corner of the screen.
• Facebook Stories: If you’re familiar with Snapchat and Instagram stories, you’re no stranger to this format of visual content. The feature is driving a ton of traffic and engagement.
• Facebook Offers: You can create and share coupons, discounts, and other promotional offers on your Facebook business page. These Offer Ads can even be created to work in combination with other Ad campaigns. You can also track how they perform in ad reporting.
• Facebook ansehen: Facebook Watch is a streaming video tab inside Facebook that offers viewers access to longer-form videos from creators.
• Facebook Marketplace: It’s not just for selling items around your home, Facebook Marketplace can drive business as well.

17. Create an Effective Facebook Paid Marketing Strategy

You must be wondering, “I thought this was about organic traffic?”

Here’s the thing:

Paid reach can funnel into your organic reach and extend the lifecycle of your posts.

This means it will be shown to more people and users will be able to interact with your content for a longer period of time.

Wie ist das möglich?

Es ist einfach.

People can still see your post even though they weren’t targeted through paid distribution.

The audience that you pay for may decide to share and engage with the post. In that case, it will gain an organic reach when their audience also engages.

Now let’s get into how to run effective paid promotions for your posts.

Schritt 1: Install the Facebook Tracking Pixel on Your Site

The Facebook pixel allows you to track the specific actions taken on your website and other landing pages.

Better yet, it allows you to build custom audiences so you can retarget people who’ve visited your website.

If you havn’t installed it yet, go to your “Ads Manager” or “Power Editor.”

You’ll be prompted to create a Pixel if you don’t have an active one.

After you’ve created your Pixel, you’ll receive a tracking code that you have to copy and paste into the header of your website.

To easily place the Pixel on your website, you can do one of two things:

1. Use Google Tag Manager to place the code in your title tags without messing around with your website’s HTML files.
2. Use a WordPress plugin called PixelYourSite. After it’s installed, get your Pixel ID from your Ads Manager and simply copy it into the settings of the plugin. There’ll be no need to play with codes and title tags.

And that’s it!

Do this once, and you’re good.

Step #2: Gain Traction Organically Before Paying

We’ve seen how organic and paid reach work hand in hand.

This is an effective way to ensure that your ads reach more people at a cheaper cost.

Some tips for organic promotion:

• Share your post multiple times on Facebook. Make sure you vary the format as well as the time that you publish.
• Reach out to influencers to share your content with their networks.
• Post to other Facebook pages and groups where you’re allowed to.

Step #3: Create Your Ad or Boost Your Post

You can either run an official Facebook ad or a boosted post campaign.

At first glance, they appear the same.

So what’s the difference?

Ein paar Dinge.

• Ads are created using your Ad Manager while boosted posts can be run directly from your business page.
• You must first publish a post on your page to boost it whereas an ad does not need to be on your page.

This means the strategy of promoting posts organically first, is best suited to boosted posts.

Let’s get into the details.

How to Boost a Post on Facebook

First, find the “Boost Post” button under your post.

Select a goal:

Narrow down your audience.

You can opt for:

• People who like your page
• People who like your page and their friends
• People who you choose through targeting

Set your budget and duration of your campaign.

Finally, ensure that your Tracking Pixel is turned on.

So that’s it for boosted posts.

What about actual Facebook ads? The concept is not much different.

Put these steps into action.

Step #4: Create your Ad using Ads Manager

Head to Facebook Ads Manager.

Select an objective for your campaign.

You have way more options than a boosted post.

But you can only select one objective.

Step #5: Define Your Targeting Options

Du kannst entweder:

• Create a custom audience: To reach people who’ve already engaged with your business. For example, you can import your email list to form a custom audience.
• Create a lookalike audience: To reach new people who are similar to an audience you already have elsewhere.
• Use a saved audience: If you’ve run ads in the past, you can use the same audience.

Select your ad placement.

Set your budget and schedule.

Format your ad, write a click-worthy caption, and add an eye-catching image.

After you’ve finalized the creative elements, you can place your ad order and you’re set to go.

Pro tip: Read this post on how to make your Facebook ads better.

Step #6: Use Retargeting

Have you ever visited a website, and ten seconds later, be shown a Facebook Ad from that very website?

Chances are you have.

When marketer’s abuse it, this could get annoying for a consumer.

Imagine continuously been shown ads for a product you already bought or a website you were never really interested in.

In any event, this is still one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolbox.

It’s where you’ll experience the full capability of the Facebook Pixel.

If you implemented Step 1, yours should be fired up and ready to go.

So, how does retargeting work?

It allows you to target your ads to people who’ve demonstrated an interest in your business.

Here’s a visual representation of the process:

As you see, this is brilliant for recapturing lost leads.

The whole premise is that it’s easier to convert someone who’s already engaged with your business rather than a total stranger.

Jetzt:

Your retargeting ads are set up with the same steps that I detailed above for a normal ad campaign.

Your targeting is the only variant.

Something to keep in mind: Retargeting campaigns take some time to gain traction. Set a goal, decide on a time frame, and commit to running your ads for the duration of that time frame.

Step #7: Determine the ROI of your Facebook Ads

Let’s talk about results.

Facebook campaigns aren’t difficult to set in motion.

Yet, many marketers don’t see the results that they hoped for.

But here’s the brutal truth:

Unless you track your ads, how much they cost, and the return you’re getting, there’s no way you can keep optimizing your performance.

So which metrics should you be tracking?

• Conversion rates
• Number of times an ad has been served to a user
• Return on dollar investment
• Click Through Rate (CTR)
• Cost per Click (CPC)

These are all available in your Power Editor with Facebook’s Ad reporting function.

Analyze your results and work towards improving them.

18. Harness the Power of Facebook “Dark Posts”

Facebook “dark posts” have been around for a while.

Yet, they’re one of the most underutilised marketing tools.

Is the concept as sinister and shadowy as the name sounds?  A bit.

“Dark posts” otherwise called unpublished posts are news feed style ads that don’t get published to your news feed. This means that they won’t be found on your timeline or in your fans’ feed.

So what’s the point?

Sie können:

• Create as many ads as you want without turning off your audience
• Split test several elements of your ads to select the highest performing variations
• Decide to expose only the high impact ads to your organic audience and be confident that they’ll perform
• Stay in Facebook’s good graces. Your page will be less promotional which is what Facebook’s algorithm favors
• Personalize your ad copy for different segments of your audience

Now that you know the benefits, here’s how you can put unpublished “dark posts” to work for your business.

Head to Ads Manager, then follow these steps from Facebook.

You’ve created an unpublished post, aka a Dark Post.

19. Grab Attention and Inspire Action with Persuasive Copy

If you’ve had any success on Facebook, you already know that the creative elements are the variables that matter.

What does this mean for your Facebook strategy?

You need to test different aspects of the creative. This includes split testing your copywriting and visual elements to find the highest performing combinations.

It will serve you well for both paid promotions and your organic reach.

We’ve already been through the visual elements.

So let’s talk about copy.

The purpose of persuasive copy is to:

1. Improve Your Click Through Rate (CTR)

CTR refers to the number of people who click through to your website after they’ve been served your ad.

If it’s low, that’s a pretty good indication that your ad copy and visuals need work.

CTR is not a metric that will make or break your media marketing performance, but you also don’t want to get it wrong.

That would mean leaving a better result on the table.

2. Lower your Cost per Action (CPA)

An action will depend on what your conversion goal is.

It could be:

• Video views
• App installs
• Ecommerce store visits
• Page visits
• Shares, comments, and likes

Any action that you want users to take when served your content comes into play here.

The less it costs you to drive these actions, the higher your conversion rates.

So, what does persuasive copy have to do with CPA?

Well, users will only move on a solid call to action (CTA).

In turn, the strength of your CTA’s depend on your copy.

How to Craft Compelling Facebook Call-Actions That Convert

• Always tailor your CTA to your conversion goal. Generic, one-size-fits-all copy won’t cut it.
• Use exclusivity to amp up perceived value. This goes hand in hand with urgency. In fact, words used to convey exclusivity can also be used to drive urgency.
• Create urgency to give users an extra push. Think of relevant words and phrases that evoke a sense of now. The fear of missing out (FOMO) will kick in and users will have a greater chance of taking action.
• Eliminate weak verbs like download, save, learn, and find out. These lack the energy and punch to get people excited. If you must use them, add urgency words to modify. Zum Beispiel: CTAs with “Now” at the end always convert better than those without.
• Don’t get caught up in the rules. Yes, the tips above have been proven time and time again to generate results. But your audience and what they respond to is what matters. The other elements in your content also factor in so don’t look at call to actions in isolation.

20. Focus on Value and Don’t Worry About Reach

As a marketer, everything comes down to conversions and ROI, Right?

The organic reach of your posts on Facebook is like a secondary metric.

Jon Loomer puts it perfectly.

If you go after reach rather than valuable content, you’ll be trying to game Facebook’s algorithm.

Deja vu?

Remember Google cracking down on black hat SEOs trying to game their search results?

Every platform wants to improve the experience of their users and increase engagement.

So, don’t go around chasing Facebook’s organic reach.

Instead, share every post with an objective.

• With links, you want to get clicks and drive traffic to your website.
• Status updates should be focused on engaging with your audience and getting comments.
• Share graphics to inspire your audience and get engagement.
• Share videos to primarily get video views. The CTA in the video can be used to drive traffic to your website.

The organic reach of your page is not the best performance indicator.

So while you may want to amp up your game, you need to consider how much reach is enough to justify the time and effort it takes to build your Facebook assets.

Write down the goals you want to achieve through your Facebook page.

Consider :

• The size of your business
• The scale of your operations
• Your objectives
• Your audience
• The ROI of increasing Facebook reach

Only then should you devise a Facebook marketing strategy around these goals.

Choose the metrics you’ll use to measure your results.

Don’t let algorithmic changes dictate your marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Facebook is a brilliant marketing tool.

There’s no doubt about that.

The number of businesses that actively use the platform continues to increase by millions, year over year.

But Facebook is not without its challenges.

The influx of published content has led to a downward spiral in organic reach, and the competition for news feed space is fierce.

Things that were once done on autopilot, now require significantly more effort and due diligence.

Will organic reach continue to plummet?

Or will it improve?

Nobody really knows what the future holds for organic reach on Facebook.

Either way, our task remains the same.

We have to get creative in our social media marketing and provide the highest quality content to our audience.

If you implement the strategies that I share in this post, you’ll be well on your way to improving your organic reach.

You’ll also be more skilled at navigating Facebook’s ever-changing platform.

What is your Facebook page’s average organic reach? What strategies are you using to combat organic reach decline on Facebook?

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