Full Service Social Media Marketing

It’s no secret that social media marketers have experienced a decline in organic Facebook engagement and reach. Organic reach is hovering at 6 percent according to a 2014 study by Ogilvy.

Facebook has made consistent updates to their complex ranking algorithm that made it difficult for some social marketers, and easy for others to connect with their target audience. Some of these ranking updates, including the most recent “Time Spent Reading Stories” take into account specific user behaviours.

So wait, is Facebook’s ranking algorithm really that complex? The answer is yes. More than 100,000 individual weight factors influence the content in your news feed. However, there’s one pillar that we can look to influence through content style – user behaviour.

Let’s break down 3 specific Facebook user behaviours that affect organic reach.

Post types users interact with often

The more times a user engages with a certain type of post, the more likely Facebook will “serve up” identical qualifying posts of that type. If you find that your audience engages well with short videos (most likely), your best bet would be to adjust your content strategy to include more videos. As you begin to increase the level of interactions with a specific post type, you’ll help bump your organic reach as well.

Posts from pages users interact with often

A user’s News Feed is a place they go to find content from people, businesses, etc. they care about. This user behavior takes into consideration the amount of times your audience interacts with a specific author or page. The more times you engage with that user, the more likely you are to see their posts.

Tip: Don’t just “set it and forget it.” Take the time to interact with your audience daily.

Posts with positive feedback

Lastly, the amount of positive feedback a user leaves a specific post will cause Facebook to rank it higher than those receiving negative reactions. Posts that can really hit the positive emotion wheelhouse of its audience are likely shared with friends and family, gaining more traction in the organic reach department.

Tip: Make the audience interaction positive and enjoyable with shareable bites of content that resonates.

Organic reach is not dead or obsolete! Now, social media marketers are being asked to do their due diligence, and study their audience behaviors more closely. It’s simple: identify what topics and story interests their audience’s are engaging with the most and organic growth will follow.

“Remember, speak to your readers interest, not just your own.”

We’d like to hear about your experience with Facebook’s organic reach. Please leave us your comment below and let’s spark up a conversation!

#facebook #socialmedia #marketing #socialmediamanager