Reaching more people with Facebook as it becomes increasingly difficult.

If you use a Facebook Business page to communicate with your followers and reach potential customers, you probably have noticed that reaching people has become increasingly difficult. This is even more true since Facebook launched their new interface (mid 2020). Posting to a page with 1000 followers may only reach 30 or 40 of those followers these days.

It has gotten to the point where you may be asking yourself is it even worth using Facebook as a marketing tool?

Facebook advertising has become a huge source of income for Facebook, and as organic reach dwindles, Facebook is hoping you’ll jump on the advertising bandwagon. But don’t give up all hope, here are some tips to get the most out of your posts, in order to reach more of your followers, without ads!

What used to work does not work anymore

As Facebook changes, so does the way it values and shares your posts with others. What used to work well for you in the past, probably does not work well anymore. Here is a list of things that used to get your posts noticed:

• Posting multiple times a day
• Posting anything, even low quality content
• Getting lots of “likes” on your post
• Getting “shares” on your post (not as effective as they used to be)
• Scheduling posts

It’s not that you shouldn’t post multiple times a day, or want people to like your posts, but these actions are not weighted as heavily. So, that brings us to the next section… what should you be doing to reach more followers?

Increasing your organic reach

Facebook is looking for content that promotes meaningful relationships, and sparks conversation and engagement. This means conversation and engagement from you as well. Here are some things to focus on:

1 – Try to get conversation going. Likes don’t do what they used to and even though shares are good, the best way to increase your reach is by getting people to comment. A good way to get comments is to ask a question in your post.

2 – Don’t post links to your website, or any external links for that matter. This might be tough, because sometimes you just need to point someone to your site or some other place on the web with a link. I am not saying to never, ever do this because sometimes you have to. But be aware that facebook wants to keep you on their platform as long as possible, and posts without external links reach more people.

3 – Send people to your site through live videos – Facebook loves videos and if you need to send someone to your site do it with a live video instead of a post link.

4 – Load your videos straight to Facebook rather then using an embedded Youtube (or other) video. Like I mentioned, Facebook loves videos, but they also like their platform better than youtube or other video sites. If you have a video loaded on Youtube, take the time to reload that video directly onto the facebook platform rather than using a youtube link or embed code… it will make a difference.

5 – Post regularly, but don’t get caught up in thinking that posting multiple times a day helps with reach. If you have something to say 5 times in a day, post 5 times, but don’t do it just for the sake of doing it.

6 – Stop being a spectator. On the same lines as getting people to comment, make sure you get in on the conversation that you generate with your posts.

7 – Post quality content. Facebook is getting smarter all the time and they know the difference between fluff and useful information that people care about. They also can tell the intentions of your post. If you say, “like this post and then comment below” that is a big red flag and Facebook will not give that post much reach.

Examples

Here are some examples of what I mean using posts made on Roberts Automotive page. For all examples a question was asked in the post to spark conversation.

Example #1 – The post below prompts people to answer the question, “What plans do you have for this weekend?” There was one like and no comments. Notice the reach was only 39 people.

Example #2 – Our next post didn’t pose a question, but got 3 likes and 1 comment. Notice we did not put a link to the website. The reach was slightly higher at 46 people reached.

Example #3 – One simple question, but it sparked some conversation. 6 comments and 3 likes. There were 38 engagements which is the total of likes, shares, comments, clicks for more info. or clicking to enlarge the pic. Any engagement at all is an indication the person did not just quickly read and scroll by, but took the time to engage in some way. In this post having 6 comments made a huge difference in the reach of 131.

Example #4 – There were 4 comments and 1 share, which was 2 less comments than our previous example. But you can see a lot of people clicked “see more” or clicked on the pic to enlarge it. This is why the engagements are so high at 49. Never underestimate the value of an awesome picture! This post had a whopping reach of 239!

Conclusion

The guidance given in this article is best practice type scenarios. Sometimes results may not seem to make sense, but overall you will definitely see increased post reach when you get more conversation going and post things that get more interactions.

Experiment to see what works best for you and don’t get hung up on always thinking you have to make the perfect post. Sometimes you will have to post a link to your website or go against the best practices presented here. That’s OK and realize that over time it will get easier to know the things that grab your audience’s attention and get them to participate on your page!

And finally, remember if you really need to reach a ton of people you can always boost your post or create a Facebook ad.