Whether you do your own social media marketing or receive the reports from someone else, you may have noticed a drop-off in the number of people who are seeing or interacting with your Facebook page. If you’ve done your reading or have spoken to someone who works in the field, you’ll have come across the scary statement, “Facebook has killed organic reach.” But what does this actually mean for you?
Organic reach is the number of people who like your page who actually happen to see a post and in December last year, Facebook changed the game (again) and significantly dropped its effectiveness.
There are plenty of reasons for the action being thrown around by Facebook execs and critics alike, ranging from the claim that they’re trying to make users’ newsfeeds more “relevant” (i.e. more baby photos, less ads for shoes) to the suggestion that maybe they just want everyone to pay up – it seems the only way to hit the big numbers now is to pay for Facebook ads.
Don’t panic. Contrary to what we’ve been told, the free ride isn’t over… it just doesn’t go as fast as it used to. Here’s why the changes to organic reach aren’t the end of the world:
Small businesses are better off
The same reach rate isn’t being applied across the board, and the horror stories you’re hearing about organic reach of less than 1% are about the pages who play in the big leagues. Coca Cola, for example, have over 80 million likes – four times the population of Australia. They also have a world-famous marketing budget, so there’s no way Facebook was letting them get away with free ads and social media marketing. Small businesses with (comparatively) small audiences haven’t suffered as heavy a blow.
There’s still viral reach
Once upon a time your Facebook insights showed you your viral reach – the number of people who saw your content because one of their friends interacted with it in some way. Often it will be significantly higher than your purely organic reach or often even your total page likes, but in recent times they’ve gotten sneaky and lumped it together with organic as a single “unpaid” category. As long as you keep turning out great content that your fans want to like or comment on, your viral reach will continue to grow.
Advertising is affordable
It’s ok to give in and play the game sometimes. If you’ve had your Facebook page for a while, the old way allowed you to build a sizeable audience, so now you’re well set up to either utilise that or build on it (depending on your methods) with paid advertising. There are options for every budget and a well-constructed ad is a great way to drive engagement or push a promotion.
While the drop in organic reach certainly doesn’t mean the end of social media marketing, it does mean it’s time to consider upping your game. If you need a hand crafting content for viral reach or designing a great ad campaign, get in contact with Liquidity today.