If you or your company owns a business Facebook page, you may have noticed a serious drop in your interaction and engagement with your fans. This is down to Facebook’s new algorithm upgrades which you may have heard about. Quite a few business owners aren’t happy with Facebook’s new tactics, which include encouraging page owners to pay for advertising their content to the people who’ve already liked the page.
So, the bad news: if you’re a page owner you’ve probably seen the visibility of your posts rapidly declining. The good news? There are ways to work around the new changes to get your posts seen, and even gain new fans. More good news: almost all of these techniques will give you organic growth of your fans, with the only exception being a tiny bit of entirely optional paid advertising (if you can’t beat ‘em…).
1. Social Review
Take a look at your Facebook page. Do you think it needs to be updated? You should make sure that you use high quality, high resolution images and informative, but brief descriptions. You should also make sure that you have consistent graphics and styles in all of your online spaces. Make sure that your Facebook page’s graphical (and written) style lines up with the style on your website, as well as any other social media. You are on other social media, aren’t you? Good. Make sure that you are consistent between all of your social media accounts, and any other online presence you have, whether it’s you website or an email newsletter. This doesn’t effect your Facebok page’s visibility by itself, but it makes sure that your brand is recognisable, which will men that people looking for you on Facebook can find you easily.
2. Make connections
If your business is in a niche, it’s often best to connect with other pages in the same area. This may sound a bit counterintuitive, since these other pages will likely be your competitors, but remember that they will have been hit hard by the Facebook algorithm changes as well. Get on good terms with them and then offer to cross-promote with them. Interact with and share content from their pages, which will give you more exposure amongst their fans, and also make them more inclined to return the favour.
3. Be likeable
At the end of the day, the core principles of marketing on Facebook are the same: post great quality images and content that your fans will actually want to see. Don’t just bombard them with sales pitches. We know that people love to see eye catching graphics and catchy headlines. An always effective way to increase your audience’s interaction with you, and therefore increase you Facebook page’s visibility is to ask them questions and give them polls to answer. They also help you find out what sort of things your fans want from your business.
The more people you have engaging with each other (or you) on your page, the further your posts will reach.
4. Give me a boost!
Yes, the whole point of this article was to avoid paying advertising money. But we did say at the start that there is a small, ENTIRELY optional, paid component. Basically, you can either pay for a regular advertisement, or you can ‘boost’ one (or multiple) of your posts. Both allow you to set certain parameters regarding who you want to view your content.
While they may not be perfect, these methods should help you circumvent the new Facebook algorithm, retain the interest of your fans and ultimately increase you Facebook page’s visibility. Remember, if you want more information on how to use social media effectively, check out our other blogs on the subject. Or, if you’re looking for someone to take the hassle of social media management away, contact us now!
