idea # 7 how you can use Facebook advanced targeting to increase organic reach?

How exciting . . . I have received my first question from a reader of my blog. Hurrah!

Question: “I’ve always been heavily into social, but it’s just getting harder and harder now to make an impact unless your paying $$ and without being cheesy. I budget money for it these days but the “sponsored” post can not work in your favour as well. How can I get better results with Facebook for my business?”

So anyone who uses Facebook for business marketing has probably noticed that your posts are no longer getting as much engagement as they used to. Unfortunately this is true for almost ALL pages.

Facebook has become a ‘pay to play’ platform – but even with paying for boosting posts there can be still little gain.

It has been estimated that organic reach* is now as low as 8% of your fan base. So essentially if you have 1000 fans on your page, your posts are most likely only to be seen by 80 fans.

*Note: Organic reach means the reach your post gets without you paying Facebook to give it some love and make sure it goes into your fan’s news feeds.

When using Facebook for marketing it is important to understand these points:

1. Facebook controls how your content gets distributed.
2. Facebook can change their algorithm at any time to whatever they want.
3. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, Facebook will make new rules.
4. You don’t own your content on Facebook, Facebook does!
5. Facebook can be fickle with what it loves.
6. At the moment Facebook LOVES native** video content.
7. Facebook LOVES posts with fewer than 100 characters and great images.
8. Facebook LOVES posts that do not get posted (or scheduled) at the sometime as everyone else’s (an idea would be to try posting the same update at three different times and experiment to see what happens).

**Note: Native video is video that is loaded into your Facebook post from the original source. Not a link to YouTube or to another website. Basically, Facebook doesn’t want users to leave Facebook. So a great idea, right now, is to create video content and share that.

I’ve been experimenting with Facebook advanced targeting when posting and so far I’ve experienced great results.

For example, if I owned a skateboard and surf shop, I know that my fans and customers are usually either a skater or a surfer. So when I post something about skateboarding, my surfing fans most likely ignore my post. This can effect the initial take up of a post – basically telling Facebook that people don’t like my content. So here’s the thing. You can now direct and target your posts to specify fans not just by location and age, but by interest.

Here’s where to find the target.

Click and then you’ll get this drop down.

Then you click on Interested in and then you’ll get a box to type into.

For example above I have typed in #Skateboarding Adelaide and #Skateboard.

Now when I publish this post it will ONLY go to those, who like my page, who have an interest in #Skateboarding Adelaide and #Skateboard. Quickly only reaching the fans who want the content.

idea #7 Test it out for your business and see if you can get a better organic reach on Facebook without racking up huge advertising accounts.

If you want to learn from someone who knows more than me click here.

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