Facebook Zero: 5 Ways to Combat a Decline in Organic Facebook Reach

Zuckerberg's shaking things up again, and it's all over the internet. The Facebook news feed is undergoing some major changes that have many marketers and business owners concerned. After the update users will see less content posted by business pages and more content that's shared and talked about between friends and family.

What does this mean for your brand?

It's not going to be pretty. Expect to see a decrease across the board in overall reach, video watch time, and referral traffic for your pages.

What can you do about it?

Be proactive! Make these five simple tweaks to your current strategy to increase your chances of Facebook success:

1. Post content that encourages comments and shares (not just likes). Before you post anything, ask yourself, will this post capture attention and get conversation going between fans? Pose entertaining or thought-provoking questions that will elicit long-form comments. Dig into analytics to get to know your fans and what makes them tick. Make sure you're delivering content they will find valuable enough to discuss and share.
2. Avoid "engagement bait". You may be tempted to simply ask your fans to comment on or like your posts. Don't do it! Using engagement bait will get your content demoted in the news feed even further. Avoid the five types of engagement bait: comment baiting, tag baiting, react baiting, vote baiting, and share baiting. Be authentic, put genuine thought into what you're posting, and always deliver value to your audience.
3. Optimize your posts. I'm obsessed with CoSchedule’s Social Message Optimizer! Plug in your message and it'll kick out a score (for each social media platform!) along with tips to improve engagement and reach. For example, did you know that captions with one emoji and no hashtags get the most engagement?
4. Post less frequently. Focus on quality over quantity to have a better chance at showing up in the News Feed. This goes hand-in-hand with optimizing your posts. When you do post, make sure it's when your audience is most often online according to your Facebook Page Insights.
5. Use live video. Facebook claims it leads to 6x the interactions, so if you aren't already going live, now's the time! Don't be scared to try it out! Many brands are finding it's a powerful way to connect with their followers and make new fans along the way. See Facebook's Tips + Tricks to get started with Live today.

Before the news feed updates go into effect, show your followers how to make sure they see your page's posts in their news feed with the "See First" feature. For an example of how to do this, check out this story on KCTV5 News.

If you focus on encouraging meaningful interactions and delivering value, you should be able to avoid a huge dip in organic Facebook reach. Ask questions, spark discussions, try live video, and see what works best for your audience.

Facebook's news feed changes will be rolled out in the coming weeks. How will you prepare for these updates? Will you be making big changes to your Facebook marketing strategy? Are you shifting to Facebook Advertising and away from organic posts? Let's discuss below!