What Happened to Your Organic Reach on Facebook?

Are you frustrated by the decrease in organic reach on Facebook you get on your business page? Well, you will have to do with it because it’s not going to get better. As Facebook user base grew consistently for several years, many changes took place in Facebook’s algorithm and the way your posts are shown in the news feed.

Once upon a time, when you got Fans on your Facebook page, you were assured that these people liking your Facebook business page would see your updates. This was a convenient way to get your company’s news in front of them. This is history.

What Happened to Your Organic Reach on Facebook?

In July 2016, some changes took place again and the organic reach on Facebook of each update you make on your page dropped dramatically. Of what I read here and there on the Internet people are not happy about this, especially when business owners paid a great deal to Facebook through Page Like ads to get more fans on their page.

According to what I see on the different pages I manage and also clients’ pages I run ads for, the organic reach for a text or photo update is less than 1%. In fact 0.5% would be more exact now, and even if you have fans genuinely interested in what you show them, the greater majority will not see your posts unless they set “Prioritize who to see first” for their newsfeed, which only a minority of avid Facebook users know how to do.

As a business owner, if you still think that you are collecting Facebook page Likes so you can communicate with your fan base and reach the majority of them, think again. Now more than ever, the use to have Likes on your page is to give you a strong social proof and more trust in your business. Displaying the number of fans you have on any business materials and websites is what it is for and this can boost your credibility.

Forget about having your 20K USA Likes because at the end of the day, when you make an update on your Facebook page, only a hundred people will see it organically. That is why it is useless to run Page like ads targeting expensive countries, but preferable to go global and target interests instead. Targeting the USA or global won’t get you customers, but at least targeting cheap countries with interests related to your page can give you the social proof you need and engagement on your page.

How should you use Facebook for your business?

It is very unpredictable to know which kind of post is going to reach the most people and I noticed on my page that updates I do sharing others’ posts have more reach than my own posts. Is it that Facebook consider my own posts to be less interesting than the posts from others I share? Or is it that Facebook knows that eventually I will pay and boost my own posts for more reach?

This is what Facebook says about this:

It is clear that the solution Facebook offers is to pay in order to be seen, and I will have to pay them so my fans can see this post. I don’t think that having interesting and entertaining content will be enough. Video is still winning in the organic reach battle and especially live videos where you can really crush it. I have seen this on a couple of pages and it might be due to the fact that while you are “On Air”, more people have a chance to see your live video as they check into their newsfeed.

How to get targeted customers on Facebook for your business?

The solution is not to concentrate on having fans, but in using other Facebook campaign objectives. You can run page post engagement campaigns to reach your ideal audience, in the USA for example, perfectly targeted with interests at a low cost, especially if you use video. There are lots of eCommerce sites that are crushing it just by using page post engagement as they reach their potential customers.

This is the kind of response that my wife gets with her clothing Facebook page selling children pajamas…

686 new messages in a very short period of time, with most of them turning into customers. This is done by boosting posts to an ideal audience. The problem is not how to sell the products, but how to keep with the demand. Often the ads have to be stopped because products have sold out. The sales also occur straight on Facebook without people going to the eCommerce website.

What’s the value of having people like your page now that the reach is reduced?

In my opinion, as I said earlier, social proof and trust is the main value, but this is what Facebook has to say:

What Facebook is explaining is basically that having fans still help when you run Facebook ads. What I understand is that you have to target “Friends of people who like your page” to see this benefit and that it can help having lower ad cost.

The last point is what I was saying at the beginning of this article: Fans can give your business credibility

So, if you are a business owner and you want to have more organic reach on Facebook, maybe it’s time for a change in strategy.

I hope that this post has been useful to you.

I recommend you to read Facebook’s post on the topic and the comments of different users:

Organic Reach on Facebook: Your Questions Answered