Why your Facebook page is performing poorly
Have you looked through your Facebook feed recently and wondered, “Wow, why is our Facebook engagement so bad?”
When it comes to organic reach, it’s only getting worse. The average number of people who see posts on social media that aren’t promoted posts is getting lower and lower every year.
On Facebook, the average reach of an organic page post is at 5.20%. That means roughly one in every 19 followers sees the page’s non-promoted content. At the end of 2019 it was 5.5%, and the year before that it was 7.7% When it comes to engagement (likes, shares, comments), the average engagement rate in 2020 for an organic Facebook post was 0.25%. (source: hubspot.com)
But, that doesn’t mean we can’t navigate Facebook’s algorithms and try to reach a higher engagement and reach on our company posts.
So this Facebook algorithm, how does it work?
The Facebook algorithm decides which posts people see every time they check their Facebook feed, and in what order those posts show up. In 2021, the Facebook algorithm is made up of four main ranking signals: recency, popularity, content type, and relationship
The algorithm arranges and shows each individual user’s posts in descending order of interest. Facebook therefore prioritizes this to keep users scrolling so that they see more ads.
- First, Facebook understands the user’s interests and arranges these posts to appear first in their feed.
- Next, it discards posts that a user is unlikely to engage with, based on that user’s past behavior.
- Then, it scores the remaining posts in a personalized way. For example, Brenda is 40% likely to watch food tutorial videos from her timeline but 95% likely to post a heart reaction to a photo of her sister’s wedding photos) and ranks them in order of value.
- And finally, it mixes media types and sources so that a user has an interesting variety of posts to scroll through.
Now that we have an idea of how the Facebook algorithm works, here are some tips that brands can use to work with the algorithm & optimize their organic reach.
Reply to your audience
Don’t be too proud to reply to the comments, even those replying with GIFS.
Your branded content may never get more comments than anyone’s wedding photos, but it’s still important to build connections with your audience because the algorithm prioritizes posts from pages that a user has interacted with in the past, remember?
So reply to each and everyone in the comments with words or an emoji, it counts.
Aim for more sentimental reactions
Likes are weighed less now in value by the algorithm. So aim for reactions that are more emotional like, love, shock, anger, caring.
Nonprofits have an upper hand here because they market their brands a lot through storytelling. Once you connect with your audience on a deeper level, they are triggered to react more thus pushing your posts up higher in the feed.
Post when your audience is online
Look at your Facebook page insights and study your audience behaviour better. What times are they most online?
To find these insights, go to your page insights, then click posts to view when your fans are online.
Remember that recency is a key signal. The newest posts go to the top of the news feed. However, if the user has not seen your content that you posted in the morning, they’ll still see it whenever they log in at 10 PM.
If you have your content readily available, scheduling your posts helps you get the best time when your users are online, consistently.
Use Facebook Stories
Did you know? Facebook stories aren’t part of the algorithm. Stories are more effective and personal because users can choose whose story to click on and view than endless scrolling through the feed and be bombarded by ads just so you can reach your friend’s posts.
Use magnetic content that’s light and fun on your stories.
Create a strong content strategy
I do not mean filling up your content calendar and posting frequently. Any good Facebook content strategy needs both organic and paid content. You can’t beat the algorithms without a little help to cut through the noise and get to newer followers. It’s important to grow your audience in order to acquire more engagement and improve credibility and trust.
Careful of the videos you post
Remember that you’re fighting for attention, quite literally. The attention span of users on social media is at 8 seconds today. Just 8!
So what do you do?
Grab their attention within the first few seconds to get them to watch and complete. This is because videos that have 100% watch time and completion rate rank higher in the Facebook newsfeed it will appear.
Advocate for shares
From employees to friends, ask them to share your brand page content in order to reach more people. Everyone has a different friend circle and that means your work gets to more people every time.
I hope you get to practice these tips right away and regularly read your page insights to inform your content strategy better.
Many social media managers are constantly stressed about growing numbers organically and as much as it’s possible, it can only go so far. Incorporate a budget for paid posts to grow the company’s page because from the looks of things, the algos are only getting worse.
