“Organic is dead!” – This is a phrase we have been hearing lately. Digital Marketing professionals have been writing about this for months, even years, as Facebook continues its push for a ‘pay to play’ landscape for businesses using their platform
NB: This is an article by Blue Magnet
This is led by Facebook’s recent announcement that they are going to roll out an algorithm change putting less emphasis on publishers’ content in favor of posts from friends. However, not all hope is lost! There are plenty of ways you can stake your claim in organic traffic without breaking your budget.
Back To Basics
At a high level, post frequency is a huge contributor to driving traffic to your Facebook Page. Infrequent posting means you will be missing out on potential user impressions, but if you post too much, users can get annoyed and unfollow your Page. Here at Blue Magnet, we have found the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ to be roughly six posts per week. Additionally, you want to ensure you are posting quality content, like high quality pictures with vibrant colors and contrast to catch the eye while scrolling. Spamming your followers with irrelevant or thin content will not drive results.
Getting Down To Business
One advantage paid campaigns and boosted posts are thought to have over their counterpart is you can use Facebook’s powerful targeting tools. What most users do not realize is that the same targeting options are available for organic posts as well! For example, we can use this to make sure posts about wedding venues or honeymoon destinations are only going out to newlyweds and recently engaged users.
We see amazing results from utilizing rich, engaging media for our client’s posts! Turning your regular posts into rich media is not as hard as it sounds, it just takes a little more attention to detail – just think about what attracts your eye the most. Using high resolution pictures, content that is expandable to a larger size when clicked (hello, engagement rate!), and posts with special features such as polls and galleries are just a few examples of rich media. When it comes to Blue Magnet’s clients, we notice rich media like video, virtual tours, and livestreams have some of the best engagement on Facebook. Reports show views of branded video content on Facebook have increased by 258%. Additionally, livestream videos have shown to be three times as effective as their static counterpart.
Measuring Facebook Page Success
Similar to Facebook’s organic targeting, some people do not realize they have access to Facebook Insights; a powerful tool that collects all major metrics and KPIs from your posts. You could spend all day counting how many “likes” you got last week, but why not have Facebook do the nitty-gritty stuff for you? To access your Facebook Insights, just look below the search tab for the “Insights” link, and follow this to see your page’s analytics.
With all this information we can see what types of posts perform best, what posting times gain the most traction with our audience, and what content is driving the most action on our page. By measuring the success of our posting history with Facebook Insights, we can further tailor our content for continued success and future growth.
It is also important to take a step back and think about what you are looking to accomplish with your social media accounts. Success looks different for each Facebook Page, and to an extent the same is true about each of your posts. The main key-performance-indicators Blue Magnet looks at are fan adds/fan count (how many people followed the page after this post?), engagement rate (what percentage of users who saw this post are interacting with it), and impressions (how many people saw my post?). If your main goal is to drive traffic to your website, then engagement metrics like link clicks will be your priority.
If you are trying to increase awareness about recent renovations or rate changes, then you will want more impressions for added exposure. The success of your social media page will come in many different flavors, and it is important to understand the difference between them while considering your goals.
