Is Your Facebook Reach Down?

Facebook Reach DownHave you seen your Facebook Reach coming down drastically since it’s December 2013 Newsfeed update. Then you are not alone.

It is not secret that Facebook would want you to use paid services to increase the reach of your content and that message pretty clear from their post on content sharing:

Competition for each News Feed story is increasing. Because the content in News Feed is always changing, and we’re seeing more people sharing more content, Pages will likely see changes in distribution. For many Pages, this includes a decline in organic reach.

And this one advocates paid services to improve Facebook Reach,

As the dynamic nature of News Feed continues to follow people’s patterns of sharing, Page owners should continue using the most effective strategy to reach the right people: a combination of engaging Page posts and advertising to promote your message more broadly.

Since the message is clear, the Page Owners are a worried lot now. They will now have to budget for few $$ as part of their Facebook Marketing Strategy.

As owner of one of the pages, I did witness the decline in Facebook reach. For content that used to reach couple of hundred fans earlier, this has gone down to single digits now.

Earlier, in one of the Facebook post, they mentioned organic Facebook reach of about 16%. But for now, that number is very hard to achieve unless you use the paid services.

Did we not expect this??

We did. But not this way.

If you ask me, after the IPO, Facebook needs to show the investors that while ad blocks are working well and they have other avenues to bring dollars too.

But, asking the brands to pay and then make it’s content reach the wider audience, is a flawed judgement.

Brands jumped the Facebook bandwagon as they saw an opportunity to reach wider audience at fraction of a cost. Now if the cost is going up, 2014 could see a rise of some other platform.

We are already seeing news of people moving away from Facebook, so if the normal user abandon the ship, brands are not going to stay there.

What does that mean??

As a brand you might have built up the fan base organically, but going forward that will not matter. You WILL have to pay Facebook to ensure that your message reaches the fans.

That is emphasized in the article ‘Generating business results on Facebook

But to maximize delivery of your message in News Feed, your brand should consider using paid distribution, as it enables you to reach people beyond your fan base and move beyond the organic competition

Is Facebook noticing the ruckus that has been created? Hopefully yes, it’s just a month that they have updated the algorithm and I believe they will make some changes to ensure brands do not abandon them.

Meanwhile few ways to increase Facebook Reach

1. Post regularly

Nothing can beat frequent updates. The more you post, the better chances are of it being viewed by  your fans. And more they see it, they will engage. The algorithm still values engagement and thus it will improve your Facebook reach.

2. Avoid all eggs in one basket approach

If you have relied on Facebook for all promotions, it’s time to think out of the box and explore other avenues to run your promotions. Use your website, Google+, Twitter too. Ensure your messages are promoted across multiple platforms.

3. Adapt for mobiles

More users are accessing Facebook on their mobile devices. And few reports do indicate that these user tend to just scan through the posts. So, it’s important that brands design content that would suit mobiles. This could help in increasing the Facebook Reach as well.

Finally, like Facebook says,

what’s good for people on Facebook is good for the businesses that use Facebook to reach and engage them

Hopefully, they stay true to that.

Photo Credit: By Kvarki1 [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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