Every week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds company-wide sessions in an effort to answer any questions employees may have. Topics run the full gamut from current policies to the company’s future.
In early November, Facebook held their first livestream “public town hall meeting”, and invited the world to attend. To get even more mileage from the event, Facebook posted questions that would be posed and asked “fans” to vote on which questions should be asked.
One of the biggest questions that has gained traction throughout the online media buzz is what most Facebook company-members and users have been asking themselves all year: Why are my posts not reaching as many people? I would like to ask when our Facebook fan page’s reach will be coming back?”
The question persistently arose and Zuckerberg did his best to fill the questions in as diplomatic manner as possible, but it was unsatisfying to many listeners.
He said, “Only the highest quality content is actually going to get through and shown to those people. So you really need to focus on continuing to make sure that you’re pushing out good content.”
The company is starting to sound a lot like Google, whereas each algorithm update results in marketing efforts that suffer and experience a stall or reversal.
However, there is always a means to an end. It takes being dispassionate about anything other than results. Life happens. Algorithms change. Life goes on. But as a stop-gap method to feeling frustration, we have developed and gathered the top nine tactics for continuing to grow your audience on Facebook.
These methods are working for our clients and should pave the way for your business, as well.
Top Tactics for Increasing Your Facebook Audience
- Do not post more than once a day unless your unique niche demands more posts. three-to-four posts per week is the best frequency for Facebook. Try to keep it consistent.
- Combine latest news with your industry specific tips and posts and blend to attract shares and likes. This helps to go viral.
- As you gain more fans try to improve your websites social signals through sharing your content on Facebook. Find out what kind of information works best for your audience based on likes and shares. This can help you write posts that are highly targeted and attractive to your social fans and followers.
- Target informational posts rather than transactional posts if your goal is to gain page “likes”.
- Post information that is useful to your potential audience. Think about it like this: Find information that you’d like to bookmark if you were a potential customer of your own business.
- Create specific landing pages for your Facebook audience. Don’t link your Facebook Ads to your regular Adwords landing pages or organic landing pages. Most of the time Facebook traffic audience is in the beginning or middle of the buying cycle and their bounce rate is fairly high. In most cases your Facebook Page is the best target for your Facebook Ads. ( Gated content can help you promote your brand and also helps remarket your potential audience with email later on.)
- According to an article in Forbes, use Core Audience and Custom Audience in Facebook Ads to narrow down your target audience paying for ads. Targeted advertising increases the conversion and engagement rate.
- Try to connect with power members in your niche and become part of their community. Comment on their posts and share your insights, this gives you the ability to get closer to your potential audience and become known for your expert posts. Most often this will increase your fans.
- Go for high value clicks not wasted clicks. The most important thing to improve the quality of your clicks as well as your click-through-rate is to choose an image that motivates but at the same time is in keeping with the offer or message you have on your landing page. This applies to both paid and organic posts specially when you have a lot of qualified clients on your fan list.
Facebook is obviously looking to increase their profitability, and changes that benefit their company is not likely going to benefit our companies. The strategy that will always work best regardless of any algorithm changes:
Stay relevant, follow the guidelines, keep your mission intact by engaging and informing your audience and potential customers. Understand there is no ‘get-rich-spam’ that will ever have long-term success.