{"id":4103,"date":"2016-05-31T16:00:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/?p=4103"},"modified":"2021-06-28T21:38:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T18:38:06","slug":"increase-facebook-organic-reach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/increase-facebook-organic-reach\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Easily Increase Your Facebook Organic Reach By 40% (Case Study)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post you will learn about a technique I\u2019ve used to increase the organic reach of a Facebook Business Page by 40% without changing my publishing frequency or post types.<\/p>\n

Before getting into the details of what I did and how you can replicate my steps to do the same, let me say that while there are some great guides out there that talk about Facebook organic reach, all of them explain how to grow your reach by concentrating on the content aspect of your posts.<\/p>\n

There is nothing wrong with that, it\u2019s great advice and something that I will also talk in this post but there is also another easier way to increase your Facebook organic reach that can generate results faster and in a shorter period of time.<\/p>\n

Facebook Organic Reach 101<\/h2>\n

Everybody in the social media marketing world is trying to increase the number of followers (fans) for their business pages so that they win the social proof game.<\/p>\n

I have also written a case study in the past that explains step-by-step how to get your first 10,000 fans on Facebook<\/strong><\/a>. The Facebook page used in the case study has now more than 110K followers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Besides winning the social proof game, you need to have a lot of followers on your business pages for many other reasons. One of them being the organic reach of your posts.<\/p>\n

In simple terms, Facebook organic reach is the number of people that will see your new posts in their timelines organically i.e. without promoting your posts through advertising.<\/p>\n

In an ideal World the greater the number of followers, the bigger is the number of people that will view your post. In the Facebook World this is not quite true.<\/p>\n

As you can see in the graph below, the average organic reach of a \u2018normal\u2019 Facebook page has been declining steadily since 2013, with some studies showing that the reach in 2016 is no more than 4%.<\/p>\n

For popular Facebook pages (with more than 500K likes), the percentage is even smaller. In other words, more than 95% of your audience (in a best case scenario) will never see your posts!<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/p>\n

Source: Ogilvy<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s obvious that if you want to increase your reach, you have to either use Facebook\u2019s advertising system or find either ways to reach more people organically or both.<\/p>\n

Why is organic reach declining?<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Facebook<\/strong><\/a>, there are two main reasons:<\/p>\n

First is that there is too much content being shared and this makes it impossible to view everything in the user\u2019s timeline.<\/p>\n

Second, Facebook is trying to show content that is most relevant to the users by avoiding spam and content that makes no sense to them.<\/p>\n

Of course they give more reasons to justify their decision, but what we are most interested in at the moment, is to understand how they distinguish content that is thought to be relevant to a user so that it shows in their news feed. The answer is found in the Facebook ranking algorithm.<\/p>\n

The Facebook Ranking Algorithm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Facebook ranking algorithm is a set of rules used by the Facebook system to decide what to show in the user\u2019s timeline and also determines the order of results when people use the search function on Facebook.<\/p>\n

It is similar to the Google or Bing ranking algorithm in the sense that it is automated, has hundreds of parameters and is also kept as a secret i.e. the company does not reveal what is actually included in the algorithm and how ranking decisions are made, for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

Why do we care about the Facebook Ranking Algorithm? For a very simple reason. By understanding how the algorithm works we can find ways to optimize our Facebook page and posts for more exposure (both organic and paid).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like doing SEO for Google<\/strong><\/a> but in a slightly different way. As we you will read below, there are things to optimize on a post level and techniques you can use that go beyond posts and content.<\/p>\n

Understanding the Facebook Ranking Algorithm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wallroomedia<\/strong><\/a> has a nice post that outlines all the changes made to the FRA since 2004. While it\u2019s good to take a look at all the changes, we are mostly interested about the changes made in January and February 2016.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/p>\n

Audience Optimization Tool:<\/strong> This change was introduced in January 2016 and it gave the opportunity to Facebook page owners to set their \u2018Preferred Page Audience\u2019.<\/p>\n

When you go to PAGE SETTINGS and click PREFERRED PAGE AUDIENCE, you will see a number of options that allows you to select Locations, Age, Interests and Language.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/p>\n

It\u2019s similar to defining your target audience for ads but the purpose of this tool is to help Facebook show your posts to the people that are more likely to find your posts interesting and thus increase the chances of interacting with your content.<\/p>\n

Tip:<\/strong> Before making a decision on what to enter as your \u2018preferred audience\u2019, go to to INSIGHTS and then PEOPLE to see and understand your current audience and compare their characteristics with the audience you would ideally have for your page (based on your business goals).<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t think that \u2018Preferred Audience\u2019 will restrict the number of people that will view your posts but approach this as a way to get your posts to the people that matter, even if their audience size is smaller in numbers.<\/p>\n

Engagement Probability:<\/strong> In February 2016, Facebook introduced another change in an effort to further improve the user experience by showing them posts that can increase the probability of interaction i.e. liking, commenting or sharing.<\/p>\n

Some of the factors that can have a positive effect on the \u2018probability of interaction\u2019 and also increase your likelihood of increasing your organic reach are:<\/p>\n