by Andrew Collins | 1st Mar 2018
Here at ProMo-Cymru we’ve been looking at digital media and marketing trends for 2018. In the first of three articles, Andrew Collins, our Communication and Partnerships Officer, looks at the decline in Facebook organic reach.
Reach is the number of times your message is seen by Facebook users. It is split into two categories:
– Paid Reach – The number of times people saw your message because you paid Facebook to show it.
– Organic Reach – The number of times people saw your message without paying Facebook.
A huge decline
For months now we’ve been warned that Facebook’s organic reach, that is the number of times you unpaid post is seen by users, was about to dwindle. Well in January, that warning became the harsh reality.
If you run a Facebook page, then you will likely see your reach decline by between 60-90%. That’s a huge decrease. It basically means that 75% FEWER people are seeing your posts.
That’s a problem for two reasons:
– Your message will not be seen by as many people as before, so you may get fewer attendees to your training course, or fewer people knowing about your new service or product.
– If, like most public sector projects, you report your Facebook stats to a funder organisation, you’ll see a dramatic reduction in your numbers, despite doing the same amount of work.
Solutions
Add media
There are still some tried and tested ways to maximise your organic reach. Make sure you always add at least one form of media to your post. That could be an image, a video or a link to a blog post from your own site, or elsewhere on the Internet. If you are copying a link, make sure that displays as a ‘Preview Snippet’ (like below) rather than just displaying the link address as text.
Use GIFs
Alternatively, why not try a posting a GIF – a low quality, small video file that plays several times on a loop. One organisation that uses GIFs really well to engage with their followers is Cardiff Blues. Their Twitter post below gained 38 likes/retweets and generated 6 comments, producing some GIF replies, and probably took just a few seconds to write. One word of warning though, GIFs are commonly used for comedic effect or to create excitement. Make sure you use them appropriately and don’t over-do it.
Our allocation of tickets for the @ERChallengeCup QF clash with @EdinburghRugby are available now.
Ready…
Steady…
Go!https://t.co/NDRAxDfAB2 pic.twitter.com/kUmEDE0DGA
— Cardiff Blues (@cardiff_blues) February 5, 2018
Create your own GIFs
It’s pretty easy to include a ready-made GIF on your social media post these days. Look for the box marked ‘GIF’ underneath the ‘write new post’ box. Alternatively, try making your own. You can use a site like giphy.com, or film your own like the one below. Most new phones have an ‘Animated GIF’ setting on the camera app, just look in your settings or filters.
https://twitter.com/cardiff_blues/status/922491236631629825
Pay up
The only other way around the ‘reach crunch’ is to suck it up and pay the money. Facebook is lowering organic reach to force more organisations to pay up and, as such, it’s becoming more like the old-fashioned advertising streams of TV, radio and newspapers.
In the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at other digital media and marketing trends for 2018. We will look at The Rise in Video and Live Video, and the rise of digital assistants. Keep an eye on our website.
If you enjoyed this article and are interested in the work we do here at ProMo-Cymru then take a look at our other articles in the News section.
Everything starts with a conversation
ProMo-Cymru works towards building positive change and lasting relationships between individuals, families and communities. Providing innovative and creative solutions through meaningful conversations and digital technology. If you’d like to discuss how our TEC Model can help your organisation then get in touch.
