In the previous part, we discussed ‘What is Facebook Reach?’ and ‘How to Increase Organic Facebook Reach?’.
In this part, we would like to share some more tips and tricks of increasing Facebook reach organically.
Below are some of the methods which will help you increase your reach and gain more followers for your page and increase your social media presence.
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1. Never use engagement bait
Getting users to connect around your content is important for increasing the organic reach on Facebook, but using wrong methods to do that can hurt your and your brand’s reputation irreparably.
Facebook updates is not just about prioritising the posts which get a lot of engagement but about increasing the flow of all the posts which inspire discussions and interactions in the comments section. This is the reason that Facebook reduces your reach if you choose manipulative tactics to increase engagement.
It is called “engagement bait”, and as per Facebook, they are defined as “spammy posts that get users to interact with them with likes, shares, comments or other actions.”
You may have seen the posts which say “Like for Ronaldo, Comment For Messi” or “Tag someone who likes Chole Bhature”. These posts are considered engagement bait, because they push the users to engage with the posts.
These posts should be avoided, because when Facebook realises that engagement bait is being used to increase reach, your page will have its reach limited as punishment.
2. Make your audience feel something
Never beg your audience for reactions. Instead, inspire them to react and interact.
One of the most efficient ways to increase organic reach and to increase engagement with your posts is to appeal to your followers’ emotions. It means, stronger the people relate with your content, higher the engagement, likes, shares, etc. will be.
Not every positive emotion will cause a surge in engagement. Sometimes a negative emotion can also have a positive impact on the engagement and on the reach. Mostly all the posts that have high engagement and reach have a positive emotion. Sometimes, a post which has negative emotions, also gets the engagement because they create a sense of surprise.
The content which has a high rate of shares inspires a feeling of admiration.
Posts which have a positive emotion that inspires anticipation, surprise, admiration and joy are more likely to get high engagement and reach.
Try to create content with headlines which inspire curiosity and interest. It helps in increasing Facebook engagement. Include shocking facts, surprises and twists to gain the attention of the viewers.
3. Start a contest
Everybody likes free stuff. Keep your viewers interested by having a giveaway contest on your Facebook page. It will keep the users active and interested on your page.
Organic Engagement and organic reach can be boosted by starting a contest which encourages people to engage with your posts.
For example, You can start a competition where you ask for the funniest caption for an image and the winner gets a gift. This will stimulate the response and engagement cycle and will help increase the engagement rate and organic reach.
But to make sure that this practice does not have any negative impact on your social media presence, keep in mind that the gift or prize is always related to your brand. It will only bring the viewers who are interested in your product.
Always encourage the users to engage with the contest posts. The most preferred way of doing so is by commenting. This helps in giving positive feedback to Facebook News Feed Algorithm that your content is engaging and it helps in increasing your reach.
Always stick to these guidelines, and your reach and engagement will skyrocket.
Recommended Read : The Perfect Hashtag Guide to Power Up Your Social Media Strategy
4. Repurpose past performing content
Don’t tamper with success. If you have content which has performed well in the past, there is a very good chance that it can happen again.
Making a great video or writing a blog article is very time consuming, so it is a wise decision to repurpose high-quality and well performing content.
In some cases, blog articles which don’t get enough reach on Facebook in the first try, are very successful when they are shared again for the second time. The reason for this is that reposting quality content gives you a chance to learn from your mistakes or what you did correctly. Maybe the title of your blog could be a lot catchier, or maybe your timing could have been better to get you more reach.
Repurposing is a second chance for posts which have high potential but did not get the traction it deserved. It can be also done for the posts which performed well in the past and can act as a trip down the memory lane for the better performing posts. Either case will help you get more engagement and organic reach.
Before you go content fishing, make sure that the content is still fresh. Content made for a specific date or event gets stale quickly.
5. Ask your followers to turn the notifications on
Best way to increase organic reach on Facebook is to work with the Facebook algorithm to get your posts to the top of the followers’ News Feed.
But there is a way to make sure that your followers see all your posts without involving Facebook algorithm. Your Facebook Page has a setting that lets your followers see everything you post.
Recommending this to your followers in the copy of a hit article or video, will have great advantages. They enjoyed the content, so naturally they will be more excited to see your content again.
But be sure to specify how they can turn on notifications and set priority to your posts in the News Feed.
Doing this will surely get you an increased organic reach and engagement.
6. Optimise the link posts
If you share content on Facebook, chances are that you do it via link posts. You might not know that Facebook checks the quality of your links and moves the posts higher or lower in the News feed based on the rating of the links.
For example, Facebook prioritises the posts and links which lead to fast loading pages. It also has a penalty for those posts which lead to slow loading pages. However, page speed isn’t the only factor on which the position of your posts in the News feed depends. It also penalises the link posts which have “suspicious clickbait” headlines.
Additionally, all the link posts which lead to web pages, which provide a low-quality experience because they lack actual content, shocking images, excessive or disruptive ads get their ranking decreased and will not be shown easily in the News Feed.
Facebook algorithm also tracks how many people click on the links and engage with the post afterwards. If more people are engaging with the link posts, it will consider the post to be interesting and will start promoting the link posts.
If all these factors are kept in mind while making a link post, it can surely get you a ton of organic reach.
7. Try user-generated content
User-generated content is the biggest trend wave, but it’s more than just a passing trend. It is here to stay unlike the rest of the trends. If any user likes your products or services or brand and they create some form of content featuring your brand, it gives a major green signal to the rest of the users.
People get more interested in content when their friends produce some content featuring the brand.
This will get you more organic engagement and higher organic reach.
You can try many ideas to get users to make user-generated content for your brand. Some UGC ideas are:
- Request people to write product reviews on facebook, and share the best ones.
- Launch a contest, asking users to post photos or videos referring to your brand for a chance of getting a shoutout or maybe even win a prize.
These are some of the many methods to increase your organic reach on Facebook. Organic reach is slow to grow but once you achieve a significant number, it becomes easier to grow higher. Practise these methods and you will see the changes in reach and engagement.
At WeThinkNorth, our team of experienced social media marketers will guide you through this. Please let us know your queries and we will get back to you with the solutions.
This piece was collaboratively written by multiple members of the We Think North team, bringing you perspectives from across the branding, marketing, content and tech verticals.