In the summer of 2016, Facebook delivered an immense blow to brands that have a desire to reach their followers in an organic fashion on the social media network; that is, they announced that “friends come first”. What does this hit in organic reach mean for your business?
Quite a bit. Now, your followers will see their friends’ posts before they see yours. When Facebook started ranking individual-based posts higher than those placed on the network by brands, they informed users that this could result in declines in organic reach and referral traffic. Statistics claim that website owners have an average of 6.5% reach. Unfortunately, there are some website owners that state that their organic reach averages anywhere between 1% to 2%.
Naturally, any type of movement on the social media network that states that the organic reach could be even lower is absolutely devastating to today’s brands.
Now – more than ever before – it is critical that you utilize a few basic strategies for optimizing your news feed. Many are now referring to this as “social media optimization” or “SMO”, for short. In this guide, you will be introduced to a few of the strategies that many brands have successfully utilized to improve their website’s organic reach within Facebook.
Images Rule
One of the absolute best strategies to implement when working to improve your website’s organic reach through Facebook is to use images. All images that you use when posting updates on your Facebook Page should hold a high level of relevancy, should be interesting, and should draw the attention of your followers. Social media studies have concluded that posts that have images have up to three times more engagement than posts that do not include images.
When using images, be certain to adhere to all copyright laws. If permitted to save and share the images, be certain to include the keyword that you want to rank for when saving the image. This will all assist in improving both your social media optimization and your search engine optimization. These days, these two forms of optimization go together, so, it is absolutely imperative that you utilize the proper keywords to rank high in both.
Strategically Schedule Your Posts
The next step to improving your website’s organic reach through Facebook is to strategically schedule your posts. Many assessments have been done throughout the years to determine the best days and times to post on the social media giant. When electing to post, you may opt for the following general findings, or take it a step further and conduct your own assessments:
- Saturday and Sunday posts should be put up between 12pm and 1pm.
- Wednesdays between 3pm and 4pm seem to be optimal for boosting organic reach.
- Thursdays and Fridays posts should be made between the hours of 1pm and 4pm.
If you would like to take this a step further, you may conduct your own assessment by reviewing the Insights on your Facebook Page. The information that you will find there will tell you when the fans on your page are the most active each week and how you have performed – in the past – on certain days and in certain times of those days. While general statistics seem to work for many brands, others find that gaining insight on their unique audience and the behaviors of that audience is the best strategy for strategically scheduling posts.
Improve Your Customer Response Rate
Google is big on user experience (UX). It does not matter if it is your website or your Facebook Page, it is imperative that you take every measure possible to ensure an optimal user experience. One of the easiest and most productive means of improving the experience of your audience is to work to improve your customer response rate. Facebook has recently released “badges”.
These reward the Pages that have a high response rate; more specifically, a response rate of at least 90% and a response time that averages 15 minutes or less for a seven-day period. Facebook has even gone as far as to offer instant replies. It is in your best interest to take advantage of these automated responses. You may set up a message like, “Thank you for contacting us. We are reviewing your message and will respond within 2 hours!” This is just a general message and a random time. On Facebook, you should opt to respond to your fans as quickly as possible.
Improving your website’s organic reach through Facebook is still possible, despite their updates that put “friends” first. All it takes is a little work, a little dedication, and the implementation of the strategies that have been outlined in this guide. Use images that include a keyword in the file name, strategically schedule your posts, and work to improve your customer response rate. We here at Brick Road Media specialize in constructing supersites that are optimized for high levels of organic reach – both in search engines and on social media platforms.
If you are not ranking as high as you like, you are experiencing complications in organic reach, or simply need a hand in making your website the absolute best it can be, reach out to us today: 765-439-4029