The one good thing about Facebook Pages’ low organic reach

Organic reach on Facebook has been steadily on the decline for businesses since the social media giant began making routine changes to its News Feed algorithm in 2012. Prior to the algorithm update, brands relied heavily on time-of-day and day-of-week performance metrics to reach their target audiences.

All brands struggle to get their stories ranked higher in News Feed, even when their content is relevant and engaging.

Low organic reach means low overlap

When the average user logs into Facebook, News Feed displays about 300 stories out of at least 1,500 available stories, according to Facebook advertising VP Brian Boland. This means that when users log in at any given time, they could be missing out on your content.

Brands tend to shy away from repeating posts for fear of appearing too spammy. But when done with restraint, the odds of overlap are low.

Based on the “Facebook Reach Theorem” developed by social media analytics firm Wiselytics, a repeated Facebook post overlaps its first post by only 30%. Considering most people aren’t logged into Facebook around the clock 24/7, this means the art of repeating posts can improve your organic reach substantially and generate more engagement.

Plus, in 6 months you might have twice as many Facebook fans—all of whom should see the video testimonial or hilarious manifesto you posted a while back.

How organic reach actually works

Organic reach is defined as the number of people you can reach for free by posting on your Facebook page. In 2012, brands learned that only 16% of their followers were seeing their stories in News Feed, which led to more aggressive Facebook marketing and an uptick of posts.

Between February 2012 and March 2014, research conducted by Edgerank Checker and Ogilvy found that organic reach for the average Facebook page decreased from 16% to 6.5%, and currently comes in as low as two percent for pages with over 500,000 likes.

Why repeating Facebook posts is exciting—not scary

Obviously, not everyone sees your brand’s original posts in their News Feeds. Repeating content helps your business improve engagement, gain new followers and prospects, and reminds existing followers why your brand is special and unique.

Plus, making repeated contact with qualified leads helps move these users through the sales cycle, and increases the number of clicks you may have missed out on the first, second, or third time around.

You don’t have to waste evergreen content

Evergreen content is always fresh and offers interesting and valuable information, advice, and insights that stand the test of time and never expire. Develop posts that link to your most popular content.

Better yet, go one step further and work with your content team to repurpose old popular site content. Hunt for your best blog posts, slideshow presentations, infographics, or white papers, then develop several posts that quickly share key information.

Repurposing is one important strategy. Actually repeating your content is another.

Meaty pieces of content took a lot of time and investment to complete. Content like that naturally makes for an excellent candidate for repeating. You care about that content, so save it.

 

Keep making your audience happy

 

Facebook is where we go to hear from our friends and family and to find funny, positive videos and links. In the above link, Facebook didn’t just promote the event planning capabilities of the platform.

They promoted awesome, adventurous events! So entertaining.

A 2014 study published in PR Journal revealed strategies used by Fortune 500 companies to improve their organic reach on Facebook. The study revealed that these brands opted for content that made users feel happy and pleasant, and that showed customers the inner workings of their companies.

When creating repeated posts, choose content that evokes positive, happy emotions in your audience, and share content that reveals an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at your brand.

So your brand can spend more time finding new ways to optimize your business.

Remember that your Facebook posts exist to educate and inform your followers about news and updates related to your brand and industry. When you deliver awesome content, repetition is a super important strategy for organic reach.