I was running through some fresh Facebook data and it seems as though the blunting of Facebook pages is even more marked than I thought.
If you’re a Facebook page admin you’ll have seen your organic reach struggle of late, I’m sure.
But data released by Facebook in the ‘Widely Viewed Content Report: What People See on Facebook’ shows just how much the reach of pages in the newsfeed has fallen.
Facebook page reach falls lower than groups and friends and family
According to the numbers, posts from friends and family in the second quarter of 2021 was 57 per cent, groups joined was 19.3 per cent and pages at 14 per cent. Unconnected posts accounts for 8 per cent and other 1.5 per cent.
Now, there is a disclaimers to attach to this. Firstly, these are US stats from earlier in the year. Secondly, the algorithm is ever changing.
But there is enough to take this as a good representative feature on what the UK picture also looks like.
What this teaches us is that your page content organically isn’t doing much.
Make content that encourages meaningful interactions
Take more time on creating better content. For that we can go back to something Mark Zuckerburg in 2018.
“You’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
Mark Zuckerburg, 2018.
What does meaningful interactiosn mean?
It means a back and forth discussion and replying to questions for a start.
This National Trust post is designed to encourage discussion. The more discussion the more reach when they have something important to say.
Make content to share with Facebook groups
Get to know the Facebook group admins that are likely to share your post.
Sharing details of a new museum exhibition into the local history group is one thing.
Sharing a request for memories or items from the 1960s when the Glass Cone in Stourbridge employed 100 people is even better.
This post from We Love Walsall Leather Museum shows some good interaction between the page and users.
Steer away from links that aren’t to Facebook
The data also confirmed that posts with links don’t do very well.
Posts with links accounted for 12.9 per cent of all content seen leaving the remaining 87.1 per cent posts with no links.
It’s long been no secret that posts with links get scored down by Facebook. Why? Because they don’t want you to leave the site. Why would they want to send you elsewhere? However, the link penalty doesn’t apply if you are sending people tio another corner of Facebook.
So in other words, links to your website are bad but links to other corners of Facebook, like a page post or event are fine.
Rethink
For some, this may be enough to make them re-think their strategic approach. There has been a clamour driven by business behaviours to quit Facebook. The problem for a public sector communicator is that Facebook is where the audience is. With more than 40 million users, this is the platform that has the potential to reach the most people.
It’s not 2016 anymore.
Have a rethink.
I deliver ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER programme. This is a five-part online training which looks as part of it at ways to create content that gets on the right side of the algorithm. More here.