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The Decline of Organic Facebook Reach & How to Survive the New Facebook Algorithm

If you’ve been running a Facebook Page over the last couple of years, you’ve probably seen a decline in your Organic Facebook reach. *I hear cries from business owners and marketers out there*

Surviving Facebook Algorithm Despite Organic Reach Decline

Seriously Facebook? Well, this is really happening.

Organic reach refers to the number of people you can reach for free by simply posting on your Facebook Page.

For many businesses, this has been a pain score, especially for those who use Facebook to reach cold and warm traffic.

 

What Causes the Decline?

Cause of Facebook Organic Reach Decline

The main cause of the decline was because Facebook wants “More meaningful social interactions with family and friends.”

 

For Facebook, there are two main circumstances that have affected their update for organic reach:

Instead of showing users everything in their news feed, (1) Facebook is now showing the user content that is most relevant to them. 

Accordingly, out of the 1500+ stories waiting to be seen in the News Feed, Facebook displays approximately 300 relevant to the user. 

How does Facebook filter those out?

For Facebook to choose which stories to show a user, (2) Facebook ranks all stories from the most relevant to the least important by looking at over a thousand factors relative to each user. 

This could also mean that my search behavior, the posts I like, the posts I commented on, my interests, friends, and memories matter most to Facebook.

These changes are all operating to make the News Feed more engaging, despite the rise in the amount of content being shared on Facebook.

According to Statista, As of the first quarter of 2019, Facebook had 2.38 billion monthly active users. 

Imagine this is how huge Facebook Audience is.

Now we understand why Facebook needs to perform filtering. This is a plus for Facebook Users and might be a bitter pill to swallow for marketers and business owners.

Current Status of Organic Facebook Reach

The Current Status of Organic Facebook Reach

Recent Facebook statistics also noted that the social media platform produces one of the best ROIs for digital marketers when it comes to social media ads. This is really true and has long been proven.

Since your customers are already there on Facebook, then there’s no reason for you not to be there. Always go where your potential customers are existing.

Not being on Facebook might be one of the huge mistakes a business will ever do. Build Social Media Presence!

The reality amidst these changes? Surviving the new Facebook algorithm means performing some changes to your content plan in order to sustain your organic reach on Facebook and increase relevant engagement.

How does the Facebook Algorithm work these days?

The Reality in Facebook Algorithm 2019

The Facebook algorithm manages the systemization and presentation of the posts you see, so you can see what is most relevant.

Instead of publishing content chronologically (old and latest), posts and ads are presented based on what Facebook sees as relevant to you, the user.

This is how it works.
  1. Try searching some items in some shopping apps that have your facebook opted in for login.
  2. Search any items you want to buy or you are interested in.
  3. Go back to Facebook and you will notice that there will be ads related to the items you searched in the shopping app.
The problem is that...

Each time there’s a switch to Facebook’s methodology, marketers tend to panic.

What we need to do is:

We have to adjust our marketing strategies and practices to up our game.

 

The most significant, sweeping change occurred in early 2018 when Facebook published its pushback against branded content which left many businesses exerting. 

In a moment of clarity from Mark Zuckerberg himself, Facebook seemingly laid down the gauntlet against marketers and brands at high.

 

What does this mean for Businesses and Marketers?

Effects of Changes in Facebook Algorithm

Facebook has received innumerable complaints about the degrading quality of the posts on the social media platform. 

The latest update ensures that only posts from businesses that have proven their quality of engagement make it to their audience’s feeds. Which is difficult for those who are still starting as a business.

Thus, if you are a business owner and you use Facebook for building trust on your brand and customer engagement, you might want to rethink your strategy. 

Reaching thousands of users through posts and updates on your business's Facebook page may be impossible now. Ever since the largest social media platform started implementing changes to the Newsfeed's algorithm, it's even much harder to spread your message to both current and potential users.

To have a better understanding of the situation, let's break it down to key areas of changes and what you can do to keep up:

Ways to Outsmart The New Facebook Algorithm

Organic Facebook Reach Strategies for Marketers and Business Owners

Content from Friends and Families

Remember when quick videos and viral news were becoming a trend in our newsfeed? This was when Facebook thinks that we lost the balance of what is popping out in the News Feed.

To bring back that balance, its update on the new algorithm attempts to push posts from family and friends to the top of the News Feed, while at the same time, decrease the possibility of public content from appearing in the feed.

Intervention: Determine which type of content catches fire and which ones get ignored. Conduct an audit of your page's posts to get a hint of what works and sparks engagement among users. Focus on creating the same winning content and experiment on how you can improve them further.

 

The End of Engagement Bait Posts

Have you ever tagged someone after seeing a post with a call-to-action that says, "Tag a friend who is like this or who needs this (insert funny quote here)"? 

While it may be really catchy, Facebook doesn’t like that and is implementing stricter measures to kill these "engagement bait" posts.

This also includes posts that ask users to comment on their answers, to share, to vote and/or react.

Intervention:  Strategize. Remember, content is still king. Create posts that are significant and interesting enough to encourage users to share it themselves. Focus on your audience’s needs and wants.

Know your brand's niche market and start focusing your efforts on producing great material for them. People love the information they can use. At the same time, people also love to share content that they find entertaining. Strike a balance between the two.

 

The Rising Predominance of Paid Ads

Let’s brainstorm a little bit.

Now that organic reach is almost difficult for businesses to achieve, where do marketers turn to drive engagement growth? 

You are right! Paid Facebook advertising.

Intervention:  Learn the ropes of Facebook's advertising system. Check out Facebook Ads Manager and Power Editor to zero in on the whole process. Once you understand how it works, create a strong marketing campaign.

 

Extended Use of Facebook Groups

Groups are like small communities within Facebook that are created by users who share the same interests. It is like a category of users within the platform. 

TRIVIA: A single person is allowed to join up to 6,000 groups, making it a great way to look for people who might find value in your services or product.

Did you know that you can make use of Facebook Groups to maximize your reach by promoting your brand once you're a member?

YES.

You can also create one and invite other users to join. Note that when joining FB groups, be mindful of their rules (it is usually pinned at the top): Some may not allow promotional content from its members or has a schedule or specific thread to promote services.

Maximizing Organic Reach through Facebook Groups

Decide on a marketing strategy that will define the group you are planning to create for your business. Know your audience. Determining these goals will help you build a clear marketing strategy and map out your timeline effectively.

 

Keep up!

Facebook Organic Reach: Social Media Marketing Strategies 2019

Considering Facebook’s huge audience, it’s going to remain to be the focus of many social marketers in 2019 since it is still one of the biggest. 

As Facebook evolves, audiences continue to change their behavior in using the app.

Since Facebook made it harder to increase organic reach now, this presents a great challenge to try a variety of content and diversify your marketing strategy using other social media sites, such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Medium and LinkedIn. 

With these Facebook status and update that you just read, marketers can make some plans when it comes to marketing and advertising throughout the year or for the next quarter.

Facebook's vision of bringing people together through its revised News Feed algorithm is purely for positive user experience.

Just like how other businesses improve their services, Facebook listens to its customers who happen to be us.

However, this update made it more difficult for businesses and brands to reach their target markets. 

The only thing we can say is to take a good look at your Facebook strategy.

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