As the director of marketing for chirohosting.com, much of my time is spent working across the great many social networks, trying to produce engaging content, and build brand continuity. Trying to generate clicks that drive traffic as well as remain consistent with the brand is the primary goal of social media, today. For a while now, the top social networks have been Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Facebook. Of course, Facebook has been the most dominant social network in the world for the last few years. But, that all changed for me in the middle of October this year.
Recently, I started noticing my “reach” was dropping . Without thinking too much about it, I carried on. I continued to post content on the regular schedule I always have, and following the same procedures I’ve always used. I produced the same engaging pictures and stories that are very relevant to the chiropractic industry. Recently, though, I became fed up with Facebook and the small numbers and decided to do some research.
The question I had was, did Facebook decrease page reach? The short answer is YES! Data shows an average of 40% drop in reach since September 20, 2012. But, let’s take a look at our stats.
Looking at the statistics for July 16 – August 16, 2012 you can see our total reach’s a high-point at just over 4,000 people reached. Although, it appears that the organic reach is extremely low, the average is around 140 people.
Facebook Metrics
Skipping ahead a few months October 16-November 16, 2012 and just 1 month after the Facebook algorithm change, you can see things have changed quite a bit. Our total reach tops out at just fewer than 700 people and organically we fall to a high of 106 and lows of around 65. Most importantly, looking at our unique visitors, our average for the month is around 8. That is compared to 14 in July, with a high of 27 on August 5th.
This can be really frustrating for small businesses, after working very hard on their social media campaigns and then having it manipulated for revenue generation. Of course what I really wanted to know was what can I do about it?
The good new is, while reach has dropped, engagement should increase.
So how do you increase your engagement?
Content: Create content that is engaging (pictures are a must). Engagement comes from the amount of likes, clicks, shares, comments, etc. Be entertaining, create catchy headlines, ask questions that require input from your fans and always responding to your commenter’s. The higher quality of your content, the least impact this change will have on your page.
Invite Friends: While logged into your personal FB account, go to your business page and click on the “build an audience” tab. Under that tab you can invite friends from your personal FB account to “like” your page. Of course, the key behind this strategy is having more likes = more reach.
Don’t Over-Post: People don’t like when you clog up their newsfeed with your posts. You could find yourself un-liked, hidden, or overlooked. In fact the more content you post to your news feed, the likely-hood of your fans seeing it drops. Also, time your posts. When are the majority of your followers online?
Analytics: Once your page reaches 30 likes you can receive analytics for your page. Analyze your posts and see which receive the most engagement. Rather than posting a bunch of posts focus on posting content you know is well received.
Ads/Promoted/Sponsored: Of course this is going to cost you money, but can be useful if you have the resources. Ads for pages will allow your followers to engage with your content and not have to leave the page they are on. These ads also create a direct click through to your page.
Sponsored stories are content coming from people’s friends about them interacting with your page. For example, when someone likes a post, picture, or event it shows up on their friend’s timeline. However, because there are so many things in a newsfeed, people may miss it. Sponsored posts increase the number of people who will see that someone they know has like your post.
Promoted posts allow a user to individually select a post, and for as little as $7 they can have that post promoted so their followers are more likely to see it.
Of course the world of social media is always evolving, and keeping up can be a full-time job in itself. Our social media experts here at chirohosting.com are always on top of the latest trends in outbound marketing. We are just a phone call or email away, and are always standing by to give chiropractors the best tools needed to become and remain successful.
