Facebook organic reach for business pages is plummeting.
As I noted in a recent post, brands that use Facebook for marketing have seen a sharp drop in organic reach. When Fan Pages launched in 2007, anyone could set up a page for their company and begin acquiring fans so they could post unlimited promotional content to their news feeds. This is no longer the case – Facebook has moved the goal posts once again and is contributing to this phenomenon. Simply put, the company is looking for ways to make more money.
Facebook is not your friend.
In a November blog post, the company warned brands that “Beginning in January 2015, people will see less of this type of content [promotional page posts] in their News Feeds,” and stated that brands that post promotional content “will see a significant decrease in distribution.” Brian Boland, Facebook’s VP of Ads Product Marketing, has said that that there is far more content being generated on Facebook by users, businesses, and groups than can be shown in the same relatively limited news feed space, but there’s more going on than meets the eye.
The social network has been evolving into a paid marketing platform for quite some time, and now brands are being pushed to purchase ads in order to reach their followers. Its algorithm has always been a moving target, and it has been updated once again — this time to reduce the reach of brands’ unpaid (i.e. organic) posts that the company deems to be “overly promotional”.
What do do?
Making your Facebook posts matter
Check out the infographic below for some tips to help you raise Facebook engagement for free along with some helpful statistics:
1. Add photos
- Facebook posts with photos receive 39% interaction than those without
- Photos account for 93% of the most engaging posts and receive 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more click-throughs
2. Be concise
- Facebook posts with fewer than 250 characters generate 60% more engagement, and those with fewer than 80 characters create far more interaction
3. Use emoticons
- Emoticons receive 33% more comments, are shared 33% more often, and are liked 57% more than Facebook posts without emoticons
4. Post on Thursday and Friday
- Facebook engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays than other days of the week
5. Post questions
- Questions generate 100% more comments than post that are just statements
- Questions with short or limited answers tent to receive the most comments
6. Run contests
- 35% of fans like brand pages in order to participate in contests
- Using contest-related words such as winner, win, entry, contest, enter, and promotion are more likely to engage people
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: 7 Ways To Raise Facebook Engagement (Infographic)
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