Part of the appeal of Facebook’s advertising platform is a businesses ability to reach their target buyers based on very specific demographics. And in January of this year, Facebook introduced this hyper targeting for organic posts.
Audience optimization is “an organic targeting tool to help publishers reach and engage their audiences on Facebook and better understand the interests of people clicking on their posts.” Essentially this tool allows businesses to improve the relevancy of each post by pinpointing which buyer personas are likely to engage. There are three features included in thee audience optimization tool, read on below for more information on the tool and organic reach on Facebook strategies.
Features of audience optimization
Preferred audience - interest tags that can be applied to posts. This connects your audience to the topics they’re likely to engage with and prioritizes it.
Audience restrictions - restrictions filter posts and limit their visibility based on audience's location, language, age and gender.
Audience insights - provides metrics for the visibility of each post based on interest tags. This helps businesses segment their audiences based on the response to tags.
To learn more about how the audience optimization tool works and the brands who have found greater organic success with it click here.
Facebook’s organic reach capabilities
Organic reach capabilities on Facebook have been on the decline since 2011. In 2012, post visibility dropped to 16% of a page’s followers, this reach has dropped to as low as 2% today. Social media watchdogs even believe that reach capability will fall even further to 0%.
Facebook aligns their declining organic reach to competition. There is a growing amount of content on the platform and a need to give users their best experience. Some see an ulterior motivation for Facebook; the answer to make businesses spend money on ads.
Some more tips for increasing organic reach
- Tell your followers about their Pages Feed
You might be saying what? What is that? Look under the Pages menu located at the left hand side of your Facebook and you’ll find your pages feed. A compilation of the posts that the pages you like have produced.
- Use CTA’s to encourage your followers to engage with posts
If your users like, click and comment on your posts, the possibility of your post showing up on their feed increases. Help them feed the algorithm by suggesting that the ‘like if you agree,’ or ‘share your thoughts on this issue.’
- Ask your users to turn on their notifications
Sounds a little similar to last week on Instagram non? It is similar and it does make a difference. Most notification settings are set to default but, if you have audiences that are really committed to your brands output they can adjust their notification settings to “All On” and “See First.”
- Post less often and post with meaning
Really think about your target market and their interests and needs with every post. To reach audiences organically on Facebook you need to post something that is reaction worthy. More posts are not the answer, quality posts are.
At the end of the day, the way to really succeed on Facebook is to pay. Choose a dynamic post, video or piece of premium content and give it a little boost financially through Facebook Ads. If you want to learn more about how Facebook ads work and what it costs (not much!) to reach the audience you want connect with Ontario inbound marketing agency, H&C Inc. here.