Facebook organic reach is not dead, but you will need to work harder to get eyes on your pages. Here’s a rundown of what experts are saying will help you reach your audience. Facebook is still the top social media platform that marketers use and where consumers tend to look for and follow brand pages. So don’t despair!
Those running Facebook business pages have been seeing ever diminishing returns on their effort at getting their content in front of their audiences and fans, especially since around 2016. Yet Facebook remains the #1 platform for building an audience. Once upon a time, Facebook was incredibly fertile soil to grow our entrepreneurial and creative gardens in, at little to no cost to us. Many businesses are seeing a drastic reduction in reach, meaning that a tiny percentage of people are seeing our posts, even among those who follow our pages.
Have you ever heard something like, “The first one’s always free; that’s how they get you”? This has long been a business philosophy to hook prospective customers, used by savvy marketers and drug dealers alike. Facebook went and took that to the next level, introducing an easy-to-use platform where almost anyone could find and engage with their target audiences of customers, fans, members, and more.
Of course, there had to be a reckoning, and now that Facebook has more than 2.6 billion active monthly users worldwide, they continue to change the rules. Consider the amount of users and the amount of posts being made, and it makes more sense that Facebook tries to narrow the audience for any single post to a reasonable chunk. Otherwise, our brains would explode (okay, my words, not an actual medical opinion). Really, you don’t need to reach everybody, because not everybody is interested in what you’re offering. You need to reach the right people who are going to engage and build a smaller, engaged loyal group of diehard customers.
Community is key
Here are some of the latest tips and best practices to increase organic reach in 2021, provided by Facebook pros. Mark Zuckerburg keeps bringing up the concept of community, and the algorithm favors engagement, not only on Facebook, but across platforms. Nobody wants products and services constantly jammed in their faces.
This is a conversation, not a one-way portal into your customers’ brains and wallets. A constant barrage of salesy content, urging people to buy buy buy, grows real tedious real fast. “If you build it, they will come.” Only instead of a baseball field in the middle of nowhere, work to build a community.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Are you creating conversations?
- Are you using your platform to act as a resource and provide helpful or inside information in your niche or area of expertise?
- Are you asking your audience what they want and would like to see more of from you?
- Are you taking current events and trends into account, reacting to local/national/world news at all, and creating timely posts?
- Are you using a variety of post types (photos, videos, links) and taking advantage of Facebook’s built in post tools?
- Are you taking data into account for what content people are responding to favorably and when?
- Do you ever invest in Facebook ads or boosted posts for important content or events?
Find the answer to these questions to reevaluate your strategy, work on promoting a dialogue with your audience, and ideally you will see more engagement on your pages, fruitful interactions that ultimately lead to loyal customers and bigger sales.
Create Conversations
Zuckerburg himself comes back to this point repeatedly in his regular updates on the state of all things Facebook and how the algorithm works, saying Facebook will “prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people.” Not every industry lends itself to deep thoughts, but it can be simple enough to engage your audience with community questions. People love giving their opinions or talking about a shared interest.
Community questions can be fun, lively, and create fun interaction between your audience and the business. A simple This or That question posted on one of the background color templates can get the conversation started. If people don’t have to invest a lot of time to answer, then great! Depending on the industry, these can be easy one-offs: Red wine or white? Beach vacation or mountains? TikTok or Reels? Mac or PC? Harley Davidson hogs or Kawasaki crotch rockets? Early bird or night owl?
Hot takes, unpopular opinions, are another way to get people chatting. I’m not espousing trying to stir up controversy here, unless that is appropriate for your business, but people get emotional as all get out for something as simple as pineapple on pizza or beans in chili. What’s a popular or common opinion in your field? How can you introduce a hot take to get people chatting? For an entrepreneurial page, you could put out a hot take on a cluttered desk, or making lists, or standing desks.
Sure, these conversations may start out superficial, but who knows? When people begin interacting on your page more, they begin seeing more that you post, and that’s when you can introduce something a little weightier, asking them to share their expertise or advice on a relevant topic.
Become a resource
Whether your business is a science journal, digital marketing, interior designing, or a Texas Hill Country resort, your business and your audience is unique. Real estate agencies have become good at this, so we’ll use them as an example. If you are selling or leasing properties in Austin or San Francisco, sell the area. Don’t only post the properties you’re selling or agent profiles. Post those, yes, but also post industry news and local attractions.
When people are interested in moving to a new city or a new neighborhood or investing in opening a business there, they need to know why the area is attractive. What is the business climate? What are the financial perks associated with living there? What is the area known for (local restaurants, live music hiking trails, swimming holes, no traffic)? Has the area made a list for quality of life, affordability, great job prospects in X industry? Sharing blogs, articles, infographics, videos, and photos highlighting any of these can help your page serve the interests of your target audience. This is a good thing.
Ask your audience
This is a simple tip for keeping things closer to your audience’s interests, helping you identify areas where your page may be lacking–and opportunities for growth, and keeping the conversation going. Be careful not to overuse this one, but it’s an important tool.
- Try a simple question, such as “What would you like to see more of on this page?”
- Create a poll, which is much faster to answer, and helps you narrow answers down to what you really want to know.
- Similar to the community questions, ask them to share something that has helped them. A classic example would be “What is the best entrepreneurial advice anyone has even given you?” Or “Please share some tips to fight procrastination.” Or “What is the top time-saving tool you use in your business (or for scheduling)?” Having your page followers (and hopefully others) chat with each other this way is helpful for them and for your organic reach.
Take current events and trends into account
This one’s simple: Read the room. This goes both ways. If there is renewed interest in, say, downtown lofts or sea shanty dances on TikTok, can you use this momentary heat to bring interest to your page? On the other hand, if there is a natural disaster, tragedy, or financial crash that has caused great suffering in an area? That’s a good moment to review your scheduled posts and delete or postpone anything that could be unintentionally triggering or offensive.
Some types of businesses are better suited to jumping on the latest trend. Do you have a bar or restaurant with a fairly young, social media savvy crowd? Go ahead, Photoshop that Bernie-Sanders-in-mittens image sitting on your patio (only if you can do it as the trend is hitting). Are you targeting an area that has recently been hit by extended power outages? I’m sorry to tell you, but this is not the time to promote that popup restaurant where diners experience eating in the dark.
Mix it up and use native Facebook tools
Of course you want to stay on brand, but please don’t get caught in a rut where all of your posts are one type. Consistency is one thing, but beware that this doesn’t turn into monotony. Assess where you can change things up. Add photos, videos, links to relevant blogs and articles, or community questions. Different people respond differently to different types of input. Use all the tools at your disposal to generate interest, draw people in, and get them reacting to and engaging with your page.
Facebook and all social media platforms have built in tools. They want you to use them. Often, this is a Facebook effort to capitalize on a similar, competing app. Trust me when I say, you will get brownie points (higher reach) when you take the time to use these native tools. Facebook Watch, Facebook Live, Facebook Stories, even using a background color template from the Facebook options, are all ways to show Facebook you’re paying attention and want to optimize the tools they are giving you.
Use provided data
You need to be able to look for patterns, evaluate the factors that made a particular post popular, and know when your customers and followers are likely to see your page and interact with it. Facebook provides a number of insights in the platform, but there are numerous external marketing tools you can purchase or sometimes use for free (depending on how many pages and platforms you are running, and how in-depth you want your data to be).
Posting willy nilly is not the most effective way to be. Decide what data is useful to you and make time to study it, and be willing to make changes to your content strategy based on the data. Like many other aspects of marketing, expanding your organic reach is a mixture of art and science, a balancing act of intuition and cold, hard numbers. Use them.
Consider paying to play
I know, I know, this story is about organic and not paid reach, but the fact is strategically paying for a Facebook ad or boosting a post to highlight a launch, event, special deal, or other important news will bring more people to your page. If the other tips, tools, and best practices referred to here are in place, once they find your page, you have the ability to keep their attention through organic means.
Keep on truckin’
These tips should help you expand your page’s organic reach. More importantly, they should help you build and support a community, earn loyal followers and customers, and generate positive buzz about your business. Keep working on becoming a resource and sharing helpful information. Have fun with it and experiment with new media and types of posts. Know yourself. Know your audience.
Atlanta Real Estate
September 11, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Erion:
Nice post!
I’m not bold enough to hate on social media on a forum like this, but my actions speak louder than my words:
I don’t tweet, I’ve got no Facebook, no Flikkr, I have never delicioushed, stumbled or Digg’d ANYthing, EVER.
Weird, because I’m right in the sweetspot (I think) at 40, I love the net, am surrounded by computers, develop web sites, study and practice SEO until way too late every evening, and I’m a self described expert at AdWords.
But, I never have (never will?) done any of that social networking “stuff.”
I do blog, and this is to learn things, and this works! I literally learn something every single day from blogging, it’s awesome.
Instead, all my efforts go into generating real leads on my web site, which provides a HUGE ROI! Over 100x, dollar for dollar last year.
You know, that’s just how I roll,
RM
Erion Shehaj
September 11, 2009 at 9:56 pm
One note of caution A.R.E,
Before Google and Adwords, there were self described classified ad experts and books on how to write the perfect three liner in the daily fishwrap. Don’t hear about them much now, do you?
Google annihilated the newspapers because it fundamentally changed how people got their info. Although we’re in the early stages, my money is on social media repeating that shift. And when it does, if SEO doesn’t become obsolete, it will be significantly less effective.
Atlanta Real Estate
September 11, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Erion:
Don’t see it that way.
Google didn’t kill the newspapers, newspaper web sites did. Every major newspaper in the country has an web site edition. They killed their print business themselves.
Google didn’t do it. If consumers needed to search Google for every news story, the printed papers would still be fine. You have to know what to search for first.
Twitter, Facebook and whatever else is not going to replace searching for something on the internet.
Let’s say I need a PDF manual for a old widget. Am I supposed to tweet for it, or search facebook sites for it? Naaa.
Also, I think you have this nonsense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mubCkCAEiDQ
Confused with anything relevant.
🙂
Enjoy!
Rob
Erion Shehaj
September 12, 2009 at 1:35 pm
If newspaper websites killed their own print business, who killed the newspaper websites? 🙂 I mean they’re still up and everything, just not generating any substantial revenue relative to the costs of generating the content.
Any business built on advertising (and Search is built on advertising) is built on the ability to attract the majority of the buying eyeballs. Remember what was the main spot to look up things for sale pre Google? The Classified sections of your local paper. That’s where you went if you were looking for a house, a car, a dog or a mate 😉 Once those eyeballs left for the Google provided ease, the game was over.
Thanks for that video, by the way. Absolutely hilarious!
Tom Lyons
September 11, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I have to agree ROI is not the best right now, but the same was true for the internet, and I think we expect the wrong thing from Social Media.
Internet is now the third highest lead generator for Realtors, right behind Friends and Referrals!
Now let me point something out. The first two largest lead generators are? Friends(Social) and Referrals(Social), third place Internet(Media). HMMM, Social Social Media
Let me ask a question out there, when you attend a local social event, dinner party, networking event, do you measure your ROI? Is your goal when you go to a dinner party, to solicit business? However, would you say that business gets done because of the friendship and contacts you make at those events? Sure it does!
You need to take your online social activities and turn them into offline relationships as well. Through a customer appreciate event, use social media to get the word out, tell people to tell their friends over Facebook and bring them!
Engagement is the goal, and that’s where ROI exist.
When you get a lead from your website, I bet your first goal is personal contact on the phone or in person. That should be your goal with your online community as well. Get to meet them virtually then in real world.
Just my two cents!
Erion Shehaj
September 12, 2009 at 1:43 pm
@ Tom Lyons
You better! Let me oversimplify this for clarity a little: If all you did to generate business was attending social events, dinner parties or networking events (in some markets that’s all that works) at the end of the month/quarter/year you would need to look at the dollars produced by your efforts, directly or indirectly. Now compare that with sending postcards to your farm area for a month/quarter/year and the results that yields. I’m with you that networking is not a sales call, so measuring the return is a bit peculiar. But measure it you must, because for every marketing decision you make, there’s an opportunity cost of doing something that might be more efficient per ounce of effort expended.
Makes sense?
Barry Cunningham
September 12, 2009 at 1:22 am
Funny thing ..I just commented on Bloodhound Blog about this same very issue.
Bottom line to me is there a defined ROI? It also depends what you are looking for in such ROI? Is it to build a good list, is it to get the word out about business…or is it to chat with friends and associates.
I think that really determines if SMM is worth it or not.
Long since trying to bring the horse to water. If they don’t get it…they don’t get it…why discuss or have an issue with what the competition doesn’t understand?
Ken Brand
September 12, 2009 at 9:35 am
Thoughtful stuff. Bottom line, for me, as you pointed out, “intangibles and it’s just the begging” sums it up.
If I had an identical real estate twin bro and to generate and attract business, we both did everything exactly the same, except, I embraced and employed Social Media and my twin didn’t, I know that I would attract and uncover more listing and selling opportunities, my relationships with my on-line friends would be deeper and more meaningful, my Top Of Mind Awareness would be brighter and I’d receive more referral-recommendations. (But I can’t prove it)
Lastly, “eureka”, your statement, “if your primary marketing strategy for your real estate business was to pour all your marketing energy into social media, the dollars you’d get back from your efforts would make you take a serious look at Burger King employment opportunities” should be etched in stone, maybe it should be the 11th commandment. Social Media is a tool and a strategy not Salvation.
Thanks, Cheers.
Atlanta Real Estate
September 12, 2009 at 11:09 am
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not “against” social media. I’m just not currently for it. Further, I reserve the right to change my mind.
It’s just not an avenue I choose to generate business from. And I disagree that it’s somehow going to replace search in the future, or even diminish it in any way.
To me, search is a fundamental, and due to the nature of the web, spread all over the place, search will always be a core functionality.
Lastly, I look at my real estate business as strictly a business. This comes from my background selling B2B for 14 years.
I literally do not want a single client from my social network, circle of influence, friends, neighbors, parents on the baseball team, none of it. I do however, normally become friends with my clients, and this is fine with me. Sometimes these clients will spawn off other clients, and that’s ok too.
Recently, my neighbor two houses over came to me asking for a CMA and wanting me to list their home. I happily produced the CMA for her, but respectfully declined to take her listing.
I’m not mixing business and friendship.
Again, as in all posts, this is just me.
Rob in Atlanta
Elad Kehat
September 12, 2009 at 11:55 am
Erion, I wish that you would have backed up your claims with numbers. Because my own numbers say that you’re PLAIN WRONG.
“But if you are a Realtor scouring Twitter for consumers that are just waiting
there patiently for a nice agent to DM them …”
While they’re not waiting there patiently for agents to DM them, most are positively surprised and happy to get a relevant tweet from an agent. The key is *relevant*.
Here are some numbers for you:
In demandspot.com (disclosure: I’m the site’s founder) we’re seeing a 30% !!! click-through-rate on tweeted links and 15% reply rate to tweeted offers for help. That’s between 10 and 100 times the rates you can expect using SEM (some tips here: https://wp.me/pCPZo-h).
Social media already does offer an amazing ROI – to those who figure out how to use it right. Because SMM is relatively new, knowledge of best practices is not yet as widespread as in other forms of online marketing. Give it some time and you’ll see those social media gurus provide some great ROI numbers – or just figure out how to use it effectively before everybody else does.
Erion Shehaj
September 12, 2009 at 1:26 pm
@Ehad
Quite frankly, Sir – I don’t give a damn about clickthroughs and reply rates. I can put a link on Digg or StumbleUpon and get tons of worthless traffic. Talk to me about conversion rates and adding dollars to the bottom line. Then let’s put those numbers up against… anything else you can do to generate business and you will see they won’t even come close to matching up — at the current state of social media.
Nice try, though 🙂
Tom lyons
September 12, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I agree you need to understand where all your business comes from. But to me it’s a matter of intent. You can track deals but not cost from a dinner party. The bottle of wine you brought as a gift was not REALLY a business expense it was a gift for a good friend.
Now a charity Is the same in my eyes, we attend to give back to support. It’s genuine personality that leads to the referred deals. The same applies to social media.
Atlanta Real Estate
September 12, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Erion:
I like the response.
Some day I’ll ask my brother exactly how the newspaper industry came to be where it is today. He has spent his entire career in the Newspaper Industry and is now the Managing Editor (The Boss) of the Charlottesville Times in VA.
BTW, I keep asking him for a link from their front page to my site, but he just keeps calling me an idiot. LOL!
Anyway, I think the newspaper web sites are doing fine, it’s the issue of trying to simultaneously manage the print side of their business, which is going the way of the dinosaur. My brother told me at one time that their web site kicks butt and makes all sorts of money but the subscriber side (print) is a cash vacuum.
As for google, ALL advertising did not, has not and will not go to Google. The revenue for all these ads that run on AG doesn’t go to Google. Google is great, and massive, but they are a search engine who makes a ton in cash from AdWords. (not to mention all their other stuff)(just to keep this simple). Don’t give the entire internet to Google. They are not responsible or every change on the internet and what’s happened to brick n mortars that are now obsolete due to the net.
Good conversations though. What we gain from it, who knows. 🙂
Now go place tiny classified ads in thousands of newspapers and GET RICH baby!!
RM
Brian Brady
September 12, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Thank goodness that there is another person with the courage to question the efficacy of social media. Greg Swann and I hosted a session yesterday, asking this very question. Many big producers asked the very question you pose here, Erion.
Social media prospecting is a much better application for solopreneurs than social media marketing but alas, it would require work, measured by results.
Kudos for a well thought out article
Chris Lengquist
September 12, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I have found my little niche blog to be very profitable and almost flying in the face of your argument. However, when I’ve tried to get the same results from other enterprises (such as “regular” real estate) I get very little actual results. So proceed with caution. Though I still love it and still do it.
And to hammer your point home…there is a pretty well known blogger that makes crapola in Gross Commission Sales dollars and yet everybody reveres this person and this person speaks to groups all the time and it drives me crazy! because this person doesn’t actually make enough money to have any business teaching on this! 🙂
I’m done ranting now.
Dan Connolly
September 12, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Okay Chris,
Who are you talking about? Inquiring minds want to know. Initials will suffice. }:->
Brian Brady
September 13, 2009 at 12:31 am
“Okay Chris, Who are you talking about? ”
Please do identify this charlatan so we might avoid him/her!
Erion Shehaj
September 13, 2009 at 1:11 am
I don’t think personal attacks are called for in this discussion. Everyone is surely entitled to their personal opinion but it should remain such, IMO.
Elad Kehat
September 13, 2009 at 6:51 am
@Erion
You are right to not give a damn about clickthroughs and reply rates in general. It was my mistake that I didn’t clarify what’s being clicked and replied to. So here:
When someone in your are tweets that they’re house hunting, you tweet back “I can help, how many bedrooms?” and they reply “3, and our price limit is $200K”, that’s a prospect right there. If you tweet them with a link to your listings and they click through then again, that’s a prospect for you.
This has nothing to do with digg or stumbleupon and worthless traffic. It’s about being relevant and targeted and connecting with people who are in the market right now for what you have to offer.
“Conversion rates and adding dollars to the bottom line” may vary – according to what you do with the prospect at that point – how good you are at what you do. But you can’t seriously be saying that prospecting is meaningless for your bottom line…
Brian Brady
September 13, 2009 at 3:33 pm
“If you tweet them with a link to your listings and they click through then again, that’s a prospect for you.”
Elad, I would agree with you that that practice is sound but I think you are confusing prospects with suspects. What Erion did a great job illustrating here is that conversion from suspect to prospect is the ultimate goal; that’s difficult to do via Twitter.
I submit that social media are a great place to find suspects but that you must get them on the phone or in front of you to convert them to prospects.
Erion, I had a comment that was lost earlier (most likely user error) that applauded you for this article. This is one of the more honest approaches to the pros and cons of SMM. This message is sorely needed from those of us whom have had those successes and failures.
Jim Gatos
September 13, 2009 at 9:46 pm
This issue’s been discussed here before. Social Media – Blogging’s NOT a Predictable form of prospecting and as far as I can see and I think I speak for a lot of us, NO ONE has ever gotten rich from real estate blogging and social media except maybe the speakers who go around the country telling us HOW to do it..LOL..
Matthew Rathbun
September 14, 2009 at 12:09 am
What does have good ROI? According the the latest Profile of Buyers and Sellers, Sellers found the home they bought online 38% of the time, thru a Realtor 33% of the time, the sign 14% etc… Print media resulted in less than 1% of homesales.
Open Houses result in a client relationship less than 3% of the time…
My point is that agents need to be ubiquitous. They need to engage people thru many different venues. A great deal of my production was based on online marketing, mainly because that’s what I enjoyed. However, I also used the tried and true marketing techniques that have survived the test of time. Social Media is just one more way to ENGAGE people. It’s clear on most any survey that consumers use the first agent that they have a substantial conversation with.
And yes… I did get a client while getting coffee at a Borders’ Book store. He was a new investor and I was able to serve him as a consumer with many, many transactions. SocMed is far from the end all be all, but the demographics and math work very well for my area. Engaging consumers online is the best and most worthwhile marketing that we can do.
Tom Lyons
September 14, 2009 at 2:20 am
Exactly Matthew, no one is implying that social media is the only method of marketing, anymore than your website is or Geo farming.
It’s the agents who use all methods that succeed. Tracking your ROI is what tells you where smart money is spent.
Social media is hard to measure, the same way any other social engagement is. Do you measure it in time spent and attach a dollar value to your time($100/hr). Add up the time and compare it to deals?
I don’t think so, no one would do that for a dinner party or a charity event. Both social networking venues. Could you imagine, I spent two hours over at Bill’s tonight, that’s $200 invested in our friendship, hmmm, no deals from Bill this year, clearly Bill is a poor return on investment?
If however, you are spending ad dollars on social media, hiring an assistant to do your Twitter and Facebook updates. Then you need to measure the result, because your goal was not Social interaction, it was consumer engagement int he same manner a customer appreciation event would be run.
Robert Worthington
September 14, 2009 at 7:40 am
Erion, you are spot on Sir. My best friend has closed four deals from facebook and spends an hour per day on facebook. His ROI seems really good at this point. My ROI on facebook has been zero. I do think that some Realtors forget the fact that we still need to phyicalll have our face in front of the customer; not behind a computer screen, after all, hiding behind a computer screen doesn’t list properties or draft offers to purchase out in the field.
Atlanta Real Estate
September 14, 2009 at 8:52 am
Robert:
Very true. The sooner as I can convert them off the internet to “in person” the better.
In fact, I’m taking a stranger to lunch today that came in off my web site this past week.
The net is a heck of a collector and screener though.
RM
Linsey Planeta
September 14, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I’m wary of some of the Social Media discussion that takes place. It is no panacea – although desperate agents would love to believe it is.
I have found Facebook as a wonderful way to maintain connections with my existing sphere and both Twitter and Facebook have become ways to expand that sphere.
What I HAVE noticed is the WAY that my sphere is contacting me. Interestingly enough, about 50% of the time real estate inquiries from sphere or past clients come to me via Facebook rather than email or phone. That’s enough to tell me that it’s a place I need to ‘show up’.
Erion Shehaj
September 15, 2009 at 11:35 pm
@ Brian Brady
It is unfortunate that many folks in the lead generation business dump the entire responsibility for converting the customer onto the agent. Granted that a lot depends on follow up speed and quality but fundamentally, it depends on the quality of the lead first. I have a feeling that what was described as a “lead generation system” would have participating agents spinning their wheels without any actual results. Because they never had a chance to begin with.
Thank you for commenting as well as the kind words – I am honored.
@ Jim Gatos
The efficiency of different media fluctuates depending on the tool. In my book, blogging has an established track record of producing high quality prospects for those that do it consistently and do it right. Whether or not you can generate sufficient prospects to feed your entire business, that’s up for debate. I have had reasonable success with Facebook in generating business from my existing group of friends as have many of my colleagues. I am very skeptical (to say the least) about the efficiency of Facebook in allowing us to connect with complete strangers and generate business from those connections. Twitter is great, but still an infant.
@ Matthew, Tom and Linsey
The question is no longer whether or not agents should “show up” in social media. In my opinion that has been answered by a resounding “yes”. What I was getting at was the ratio of effort that agents should dedicate to new media. Because, let’s face it – When you hang out on Twitter, time flies because it is fun. Same with Facebook. My point was, at the current state of social media, it is an economical mistake to dedicate the bulk of your time to a medium that is responsible for a small fraction of your revenues.
Great discussion!! Thanks for the thoughtful comments.