• By: Ian Vedette
• August 8, 2019

FACEBOOK ORGANIC REACH IS DECLINING!

You may have noticed that recently, your posts are not getting much traction like before. Number of likes and people engaging in your posts has drastically gone down, and naturally you are wondering what you did wrong, right? You are not alone. This one got me scratching my head too.

Well, to cut you some slack, this is not on you. Facebook made some changes in their algorithm thus slashing the organic reach of pages and businesses. As a matter of fact a post’s average organic reach on Facebook is only about 6.4% of the total pages likes! Meaning, for instance my Silver Klique Studio page which has 10,000 likes will only get a total organic reach of 640.

There are various reasons that could have forced Facebook to change their algorithms. We all know they are trying to get us spend more on advertisements, but there are two major reasons that stand out:

1. Facebook has over a billion active users worldwide, each sharing content at the same time. It is estimated that over 30 billion pieces of content are published on Facebook every month. All these content cannot be shown on your newsfeed at once. There has to be a way to filter what’s shown. Which leads to the second point.
2. Facebook only shows you relevant content. In 2018, Facebook’s Newsfeed VP, Adam Mosseri explained a process called Ranking, which they use to organise how you see the most relevant content at the top every time you open Facebook.

Facebook Ranking Explained.

So here is how it works. When you open Facebook, there are numerous contented trying to reach you all at once. So, using some algorithm, they try to predict which ones are likely to get you engaged. This is of-course based on your previous behaviour, however, according to Facebook newsroom, this process is in realtime, learning your new behaviour, hence there is bound to be changes according to how you engage with posts. This is why you get to see more posts of people friends and family who you interact with frequently as compared to business pages talking about their product and services.

According to Facebook’s newsroom, the most important factor influencing the ranking of content are comments. In their press release January 2018, they announced that entries on the site that generate conversations between people will be displayed first.

The other important thing is sharing. This signals that a content brings value to a user. And sharing is viewed in two ways:

• sharing content on Messenger with friends
• when someone engages with a post shared by a friend.

So sharing alone is not enough. Whatever has been shared needs to initiate conversation.

How to fight back!

It may seem that all hope is lost with all these technical terms and algorithms working against us, but worry not! Salvation is here. We can actually beat this artificial intelligence with our organic intelligence. What we need to do is just change the way we have been doing things. I am going to shed light on 2 methods, then you can add more in the comment section.

Method 1: Start Discussions

When coming up with content, phrase them in a way that they can create discussions. Give people something to talk about. You can use humour, opinion polls; this works especially when comparing two products or services… Employ the best creativity to get people talking in the comment section.

Method 2: Share! Share! Share!

Don’t be shy. Share your post to your timeline, friend’s inbox and groups as much as you can. If the content is relevant, you will have interested parties commenting and engaging with the post. Most important, if your are a big organisation, encourage your staff yo share your posts on their timeline. This will automatically increase your organic reach

Times are changing fast and so should you. Remember to alway be flexible, do lot’s of research, and NEVER rely on one social media platform. Try to balance across all the major sites.

Refferences

If you are interested in reading more on the subject. Here are some links you’ll find useful.

Postify: https://postfity.com/9-ways-boost-organic-reach-facebook/
We Are Social: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2018/07/internet-growth-accelerates-but-facebook-ad-engagement-tumbles
Facebook News Room: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/05/inside-feed-news-feed-ranking/