Facebook algorithms and features change very often. With too much happening on social media, it’s almost impossible to handle accounts without a proper strategy. Facebook organic marketing is considered dead by many digital experts but is it so? It would be inappropriate to say that Facebook organic marketing is dead. Instead, we can say that organic reach is decreasing and is not as effective as it was earlier.
Then how to make sure your brand is not getting affected by this. There are some tips and tricks you can follow to keep your Facebook Business Page up to date and active.
What is Facebook Organic Marketing and Organic Reach?
As the term “organic” is self explanatory, organic marketing is a way of marketing without any cost involved. It happens when your target audience or customer comes to you naturally over the period of time. This is different from paid marketing where you pay to promote or advertise your content to reach the maximum audience.
Pros of Organic Marketing:
- It builds an authentic audience.
- Budget friendly.
- Your audience isn’t homogenous.
Cons of Organic Marketing:
- It’s time taking đ
- You don’t know if it’d work or not.
However, this does not mean that Facebook Organic Marketing is not advisable. In fact, startups should consider organic marketing since it’s cost-effective and risk-free.
Is Facebook Organic Marketing Dead?
Believe me! “Dead” is not an appropriate term to use here. It’s likely that organic marketing has drastically changed but to say it’s dead is simply misleading.
The current algorithm promotes the content that users want to see on their feed. For instance, if I watch cat videos on Facebook, it’s likely that I’d be seeing more of cat videos than dog or any other animal’s videos on my feed. In fact, to certain extent, this is also acceptable because why would Facebook show its user something they would not like to see.
Other than this, another big change in the algorithm is that the more liked or viewed content would be further shown by Facebook on people’s feeds. So the idea is, the more engagement on your post, the more chances that it’d reach to a wider audience.
So technically, although the algorithms have changed, but organic reach is still there. In order to survive in the world of digital marketing, you have to upgrade yourself accordingly and with right strategy, you can reach maximum audience without any extra cost.
How Can You Still Grow Your Brand on Facebook?
Obviously, you need to follow a certain strategy to grow on Facebook. However, before that, you need to know what all you should avoid on Facebook!
Don’ts of Facebook
- Do not make it mechanical. You need to humanize your page and connect with the audience. Your brand should have a voice.
- Keeping similar content can be risky. Try not to make it same. Experiment and bring variations.
- Never buy likes and followers. Why fall for something which can make your audience lose the trust in your brand.
- It’s nice to have a huge fan base but it’s useless to have a fan who would not appreciate your brand. Try to make sure you have honest audience.
Tips to boost your Facebook organic reach
Create a community hub:
Always try to think from the audience’s point of view. Why would they follow your page? What would make them like your business page?
When you try to engage with your customers and tell them about your brand, they feel connected. You can provide a platform for your audience to discuss about meaningful content and products. This would not only promote your organic reach but also help you in understanding your customer base.
Some ideas:
- Chats
- Live videos
- Questions and answers etc
Connect It With Your Other Social Media Accounts:
You can remind your audience from other social media pages to join you on Facebook. Obviously, you cannot force them but you can let them know about your Facebook business page. Furthermore, you can add the Facebook account on your website to help your audience connect with you easily.
In fact, it is advisable to mention your social media accounts because social media platforms are the easiest way of connecting with your customers.
Take Help From Influencers:
Social media is loaded with the influencers. They are ruling social media not less than celebrities. Do you know, brands are approaching these influencers instead of big celebrities to promote their products. The reason behind this is that people connect with influencers more than they connect with big celebrities. These influencers have a genuine fan base and collaboration with them can be fruitful for your brand.
You can approach some of these emerging or even established influencers and ask them to give a shoutout for your page and promote your brand online.
Well, you must be thinking, once you are paying the influencer, how will it be “organic”. Yes, you are right. But, you don’t have to invest much in this case and if you are selling some products, you can also gift them your products in return instead of paying them.
Tip: Only contact those influencers who would be helpful for your brand. There is no point asking a fitness influencer to promote a startup or brand which sells junk food. I hope you get my point! You can check it on BuzzSumo.
Timing is a Key. Plan When to Post:
Posting often is essential to reach a wider audience but too much spam is also not advisable. Then how to decide when to post and when not to post. There are billions of social media users worldwide and their time zones differ. So you are technically dealing with a huge time zone difference. You need to analyse your audienceâs activity time and then post accordingly. You need to do this to find a regular place in the user feeds.
With the growth of other social media platforms, Facebook has seen a little dip in the past few years. Organic growth on Facebook is not as easy as before, since everyone is trying to do something or the other on social media.
Yet, Facebook has over 2 billion users and thatâs a huge amount of presence.
- Hootsuite analysed the timings. According to them, the best time for B2B posting is between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. And the best time for B2C is 12 p.m. EST on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
- Neil Patel suggests that another good option can be to post on âoff-peak hoursâ. Moreover, according to him, âthe best time to post on the social network for getting more shares was found to be 1 pm, while 3 pm was the best time for getting the most clicks.â
- Off-peak hours could be a good idea since your competitors would not be posting at that time.
If you want to know about the timings of other social media platform, check this out!
Be Consistent:
You cannot just post about your products until and unless you’re a very famous and big brands. To have the consistent fan base, you have to be consistent with your contents. You can plan your content beforehand and schedule it accordingly to have a rhythm.
If you are from a certain industry, apart from putting up content related to your products, you can also add some other facts and information which would attract people.
Social media managing platforms such as SocialGrow help you to schedule and analyse your post without any extra efforts. Our calendar allows you to view your scheduled content across all platforms, so your entire team is on track with whatâs being published. Moreover, it’s also easy to get a real time insight of your post.
Organic Does Not Mean That You Shouldn’t Invest
Yes we told you how to grow without investing much but come on! Even you know that you need to promote your page a little to get the right kind of audience.
With a small pay, you can promote your post and get some amazing reach. The idea is to be organic in your strategy and content. You still need to have patience and hope when you post content everyday but the 20% promotion is also an essential part of Facebook Marketing. .
It’s all a gamble in the beginning. You have to test what’s working in your case and then you’ve to strategies accordingly.
Conclusion
To grow organically means to not use any kind of advertisement for your page. It is obvious that you cannot always rely on the organic method but as a startup, it’s always better to experiment a little because you don’t have much to lose. However, Facebook organic marketing is still working and effective.
Once you get a hold of it, you can easily decide what to do and how to do!