We all know that Facebook has experienced more changes than Cher’s face. And we all know that all we can do about it is complain. The most recent Facebook algorithm changes drastically decreased pages’ organic reach. Here’s why.
What Happened?
Let’s pretend that Facebook is your favorite watering hole where you and all of your friends hang out. Well, let’s say that it suddenly got very popular and now it is extremely crowded. Now it’s difficult to see the friends you really want to see. So the establishment enforces a new dress code and set of rule. This is essentially what Facebook has done. Newsfeeds got crowded and Facebook started punishing everything that they didn’t consider high-quality content. As a result, organic reach took a nosedive.
The Result
The most important factors for business pages are reach and engagement. “Boosting” or “promoting” a post means that you pay to receive a higher reach. Your organic reach is the number of people who saw your post without it being promoted or boosted. The new algorithm favors posts containing links and punishes meme content.
Reach and engagement has decrease across the board because your posts aren’t visible to your audience anymore. Here are a few ways to stay visible to your audience and not be punished by Facebook.
What To Do
- Focus on engagement.
- The way you once kept your audience engaged doesn’t work anymore. But it is still as important as ever. You just have to find a new way to speak to them.
- Know your audience.
- Understand why they “like” your posts. Facebook offers deeply insightful analytics for FREE! Use them.
- Stray far away from Call To Actions.
- These were once your engagement-increasing actions. But now Facebook will punish you for using them. So they have to be adapted. Avoid using the phrases “like”, “comment”, and “share” in your statuses.
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- There are ways around them; use phrases like “give us a thumbs up”, “let us know”, and “pass this along.” Get creative.
- NO MORE MEMES!
- Let’s be honest, memes are so 2012. We’re over them and so is Facebook. We know your audience really identified with the Ecards you were posting, but that was because it was your voice. Keep that voice strong in another format.
- Post, Post, Post.
- Post as frequently as you can. Prescheduling posts is a huge time saver. You can use scheduling software or use Facebook’s scheduler.
- Try different times.
- Keep your posting schedule random. Check out your analytics to see what time your audience is most frequently online and post within this time frame. Change it up; see what works.
So here’s the thing. Organic reach has taken a huge hit, but we can withstand it. To see increased organic ranking try these 6 tips. Post photos with links over text-only statuses and never ask for engagement. If you are having trouble overcoming these algorithm changes, give Comit Developers a call. We know Facebook. And when Facebook changes again, we’ll be on top of it.