Is your content getting noticed on Facebook?
You’ve got hundreds of followers so you know that your posts have a pretty good reach right? WRONG. A recent report by Locowise revealed that less than 11 per cent of your fans will see your content. Some other marketing researchers have reported that number to be as low as two per cent. And post engagement rates sit at around five per cent. Users skim through content, and clicking, commenting and sharing of posts is down.
This is bad news for businesses on Facebook because engagement is what drives the reach of a post. Sooo only 11% of your fans will see your content and only 5 % of those followers will actually engage with your post. That figure equates to about 0.25-0.63 % reach. If you really want to stand out on Facebook you need to consider the algorithm.
So how do you nail the Facebook Algorithm?
Facebook news feed visibility comes down to the following:
1) Interest in your Facebook page
If your fans haven’t looked at your posts in a long time, Facebook will think that your content is irrelevant. This means that you won’t appear on their news feed. These followers are your ‘dormant fans’. Try and re-engage with them through a boosted post created just for them. Make it juicy, interesting, funny and get them back on board.
2) The type of post
All posts are not created equal and 2017 will see Facebook favour video content. As far as Facebook is concerned, the best type of post you can create is Facebook Live. Second to that, uploading original video content is quite highly regarded. BUT YouTube links are not. Generally any links heading out of Facebook space are low-value content. As such, they are not highly ranked by the algorithm. But remember, you should create content for people first and robots second. So if an external link to a video is of value to your readers, it will drive engagement and that’s what you’re looking for.
3) Post Performance
The first few minutes post-posting are the most important. If your post is liked, shared and/or commented on quickly then Facebook will see it as valuable content. Equally, if it is ignored or blocked then Facebook will limit the post reach accordingly. So how do you get people to engage quickly? Have a look at your stats:- What days/times are your audience online? Schedule your posts for these peak traffic times.- What content are they engaging with the most? Check this out and then create the content that your readers enjoy the most.
4) Recency
It’s a fact that newer posts do better on Facebook. You probably have about a few hours from when you publish to when your post all but disappears from news feeds. Again the answer here is to do a bit of research. Have a look at your page insights and work out when your users are logged on. Then you can schedule your publishing around that.
As a general rule:
Mornings 8am-9am
Lunch 12pm-3pm
Evening 7pm – 10pm
And here are a few extra ways you can befriend the algorithm:
– Facebook does not like images that look like adverts so keep text on images to a minimum. A general rule of thumb is no more than 20 per cent.
– Don’t overuse memes – they won’t not get as much traction as other content
– Facebook will restrict repetitive content so be unique
