 If you have a Facebook page, you may have noticed a rapid decline in organic reach since December 2013. I assure you, this is normal... and unfortunately, it doesn't look like there is much we can do about it, except continue to post meaningful and engaging content (...and maybe purchase more ads). In December 2013, Facebook rolled out its newest News Feed algorithm, which purposefully limited pages' reaches. Facebook admitted that the only way to achieve a higher reach was to pay for advertising. Many marketers and business owners expected this change and understood Facebook's business decision. What Increased Content Sharing Means for Businesses - Facebook News In February and March, Facebook focused on improving advertisers' experiences. In this time, ZABAVA noticed the reach across all of our clients was declining. On March 6, 2014, Facebook released its newest News Feed design. While Facebook denied that the updated design of the News Feed has any any affect on pages or how content is chosen to appear in the News Feed, we observed a negative impact. An Updated News Feed - Facebook News Since Facebook released its new design, the organic reach on all the business pages ZABAVA manages incurred an even larger decrease in organic reach. To illustrate, ZABAVA's Facebook page has over 700 likes. Prior to December 2013, we could expect to achieve a reach of a little over 100. We were right on target with the average of 16% organic reach based on number of likes. Now, we expect a reach of 25, or 3%. From our research, the average reach is now 2.5%.  At ZABAVA, we have a suspicion that organic reach insights are fewer than reality. For example, within minutes of posting, a ZABAVA client's post received 7 total likes and one comment, and Facebook reported 10 people were engaged in the post. However, Facebook reported that only 15 people saw this post. That means 50% of the people who liked the post reacted by liking or commenting on the post. Facebook claims that its algorithm weeds out posts that do not generate interest; however, since 50% of the audience who "saw" this post were interested, we believe that Facebook either incurred a glitch or immediately stopped showing this post in order to alert the user that the post was performing well and that an ad would help increase the reach of the post.
What do we advise? Ride this Facebook wave. Experiment with your posts. If appropriate, share your business page posts to your profile. Purchase advertisements when necessary, like when you are running a promotion. Last, as always, post meaningful and engaging content focused on your audience. Tell us, what changes has your Facebook page incurred since December 2013? |