Getting your business online and active in social media platforms like Facebook can be a frightening prospect. You’re here to learn how to improve Facebook page reach for your business page. It’s not a task for beginners, so get ready.
Despite the reservations that many brick-and-mortar home furnishings stores have about getting on social media, the fact remains that 77% of Americans have a social media profile. Your target market is online, and if you want their business, it’s important they find you there. It’s important to understand some of the intermediate topics like:
- What is organic reach on Facebook
- How Facebook algorithms have changed
- How new algorithms affects newsfeeds
- Why knowing your audience is critical
- How to keep your audience engaged with your content
- How to improve Facebook page reach
Let’s take a look each piece of the puzzle and evaluate how it all fits together.
Understanding Your Facebook Audience
As with any good marketing campaign, knowing who you’re targeting is an imperative first step. Who is your ideal customer? What is important to them? What are they looking for? How do they use Facebook? How can you best reach them? These questions and more can be answered through an inherently intuitive tool called Facebook Audience Insights. This tool can help you learn how to improve Facebook page reach and is free to use. It’s accessed through the Facebook Ads Manager, and can give you a great deal of information about your audience. It can tell you:
- What your target market is doing
- What the audience of the competition is doing
- Your total number of likes and if they are increasing or decreasing
- How many people are having active conversations about your page
- Your total weekly reach
You can evaluate everyone on Facebook, only people who are connected to your page, or you can even upload a list of customer email addresses. The latter option allows you to analyze the demographics and social media behaviors of people you know are already fans of your brand. Set your specific parameters and watch the tool work.
The most important key to understanding your Facebook audience is learning what will keep them engaged. You can post day after day on your company’s social media accounts, but if your audience isn’t engaged, it’s like picking up a megaphone and shouting to an empty room. Use the data to understand what your target audience is likely to react to and engage with, and then create that same type of content.
How Facebook Algorithms Have Changed
Much like search engine algorithms, Facebook algorithms are constantly changing. While the goal of search engine algorithms is to connect people with websites with robust content on the topic they’re searching for, Mark Zuckerburg announced in January of 2018 that Facebook’s algorithms will begin prioritizing “meaningful interactions between people.” This means that posts from friends, family, and groups will be higher up on newsfeeds and users will start seeing less public content, including business advertisements.
As a user, this sounds like a sensible move, but businesses have naturally been apprehensive about the change. When working on how to improve Facebook page reach, it doesn’t help when the platform makes your content a lower priority. Certain actions performed by users are considered meaningful, and the more meaningful the action, the more quality the time.
For example, comments and shares have more weight than click-throughs and likes. Businesses can make the new algorithms work for them by engaging more with their customers on the platform. Post content that prompts users to comment and reply back when someone posts.
Integrate Facebook Engagement with your Content Strategy
Great content matters to Facebook as much as it matters to search engines. Thin content doesn’t rank well on Google, and it won’t perform well on social media. It’s critical that you consistently produce high quality, rich content that answers the questions your potential customers have or solves their problems. When you create content for your website or blog, consider how it will be shared on Facebook and how to improve Facebook page reach with your content.
Would more pictures of your products engage users? Add them. Do people come to your store asking the same questions? Create an FAQ, or even better, a video Q&A session. Or both. Make sure your content is synonymous with your brand’s message, and focus on how you can bring value to consumers on social media through the content you share.
Repurpose Great Content on Facebook
These days, quality content can be costly. Whether you create all of your content in-house or pay someone else to create it for you, your budget still takes a hit. A common mistake that business owners make in an attempt to cut costs is to shave down content. However, thin content gets less engagement, so this is one of the least effective budget slashing strategies. Instead, repurpose content that you know performed well.
For example, you can take content from your email marketing campaign with the highest click-through rates and share it on your business’ Facebook page. Or, you can repurpose high performing blog posts by turning them into eBooks or create podcasts and videos on those same topics. Not only does this save you money because you’re not creating content from scratch, it also increases the likelihood of engagement, because it’s something you know your target audience already liked. When asking how to improve Facebook page reach and save money, repurposing content that you know performs well is a great way to stretch your marketing dollars and create effective social media posts.
Optimize Facebook Post Scheduling
While posting great content is half the battle, it’s also important to make sure your content is launching when your target audience is most likely to see it. While no actual “best time of day” exists, there are some general guidelines that can make sure you’re scheduling your posts when your audience is online.
Sprout Social states that the best times to post on Facebook for consumer goods brands are:
- 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday
- 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Thursday
- 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday
Experiment with the times of day that you post and keep a close eye on your analytics. If posts on a certain day or time start to do well on a regular basis, make a note of it and continue posting at that time.
Understanding Pay-to-Play
Facebook is a business like any other, and they make a great deal of money from advertisements. They don’t want businesses to be able to reach their audiences for easily for free, so advertising on Facebook effectively usually requires paid ads. Your organic reach is people who see your content without paid ads — for example, people who follow your page and perhaps their friends. Paid reach, however, includes people who see your content as a result of promotions.
Paid ads on Facebook are affordable for any budget because you can set your maximum budget for each ad, even if your budget is just a few dollars a day. You can choose your preferred audience demographics, and Facebook will place your ads in the newsfeeds of so many people per day. The more money you spend, the more people you can reach. You can even set filters to specify your audience demographics for an even more targeted approach.
Incorporate Video for Facebook Feeds
Facebook algorithms give more weight to posts that include video and place them higher up on newsfeeds. When possible, incorporate video into your content. Facebook Live is a great way to promote your brand and it gives you the opportunity to be visual without high production costs. Use talent that is relatable and likable, make sure you have questions prepared, and let users know why you’re broadcasting.
If you have the budget, investing in professional videos of your retail store or animated “explainer” videos can help increase your engagement and brand exposure.
Analyze Metrics and Adapt
Analytics are critical to your long-term social media strategy. Use Facebook Insights to find out when users are engaging with your content and what kind of content they engage most with. Use this information to create more of the type of content that users like and share and to publish that content when your audience will most likely see it.
Although jumping in feet first to social media advertising can be scary, this type of strategic marketing can be highly effective — even more so than traditional types of advertisement. Continue posting great content to your newsfeed and learn how to increase improve Facebook page reach in a variety of ways. It’s well worth your time and effort to learn how to make Facebook work for your business!
If social isn’t your strength, consider working with a professional digital marketing team like MicroD.