It’s likely you already have a personal Facebook account for staying in touch with friends and family. With 2.8 billion daily users, Facebook is the largest social media platform. Why not use that to your advantage? If you also have a company, product, or brand, it makes sense to create a separate Facebook Page for your business. It can help you reach billions of potential customers daily, build brand loyalty, compile an email list for your business by collecting emails from your followers, direct and increase traffic to your website, gain a deeper awareness of your followers, and even keep an eye on your competitors.
Facebook defines reach as “the [estimated] number of people who saw any of your posts at least once.” Reach can be both unpaid (organic) and paid. Let’s dive into 11 strategies to enhance your organic reach.
Create a Business Page
First things first. When you’re getting started with a Facebook Page for your company, make sure it’s a business profile. A Facebook Business Page is free to create and maintain, and it can provide you with valuable information about your customers through Facebook’s Business Suite Insights, which is an analytics tool provided for free by Facebook. This built-in tool synthesizes the demographic data that users willingly disclose to the app, so you can get such details of your Page’s visitors as age, location, interests, employment, language, gender, relationship status, education, Page Likes, Facebook usage, and past purchasing activity.
Using the Business Suite Insights can help anyone looking to maximize promotional campaigns, increase web traffic, and encourage return customers. You can also use the data provided to create and share resonant content and target specific users. Plus, if and when you decide to pay for promotion you can use this data to create targeted ads, thus lowering overall marketing costs.
Optimize Your Profile
Once you’ve taken the plunge to build a Facebook Page for your business, be sure to make the most out of it. This means a few things: first, optimize your profile picture. It’s a savvy choice to use a high-resolution photo of your company logo for maximum visibility and brand recognition.
Facebook also lets you add a cover photo, which is a larger canvas and offers more opportunities to showcase your product or brand. Make sure it’s the right size (820 by 315 pixels) and if it’s a cover video, under a minute long. The cover photo and profile photo should complement each other well.
The final step in optimizing your Facebook Business Page is to fill out your bio. It’s best to complete all the information possible so you can provide the most details to your prospective customers. The Facebook Business Page bio provides a lot of space to showcase important details about your business, product, or brand—make the most of it! Fill out every detail you can. The bio includes space for contact info and links to your website or online shop, a short About Us section, any general company information, a list of your company’s products and/or services, as well as your company’s founding date. You even have a chance to share your company story and mission statement!
Add Video Content
A recent survey indicated that 54% of consumers wanted to see more video content from a brand or business they support. Since Facebook offers a couple of ways to use video (video posts and Facebook Live), why not try mixing it up with some video content? Using video is a dynamic way to engage with current and potential followers as well as showcase your business, product, or brand.
When you post a video to your Facebook Page, it automatically plays in the News Feed without users clicking on it to begin, making video content very hard to ignore or scroll past. And since Facebook’s algorithm favors videos, use that to your advantage and boost follower interaction, thus increasing your reach.
If you’re ready to stream videos directly into your followers’ feeds, start using Facebook
Live. Launched in April 2016, Facebook Live appeals to marketers and viewers alike because of its fun, intimate, easy way to connect and communicate in real-time—from your desktop computer or simply a cell phone. Shortly after launching, the Facebook algorithm prioritized Live video because it was earning 3 times more watch time than regular video. It has continued to trend upward: in 2020, Live video viewership on Facebook rose by 50%. Try using it for your business and see what kind of feedback and reach you get!
Have Fun With Stories
Stories, which began on Snapchat and were popularized on Instagram, are now available to Facebook users. Facebook Stories is a feature where users can share brief text, video, animation, or photo posts that appear at the top of the Facebook app and disappear after 24 hours. Stories can be a fun and effective way to share content and engage with your followers in an authentic, unplanned, in-the-moment way. Photos appear for five seconds, and videos can be up to 20 seconds long. Users can reply to Stories using Messenger. Facebook Stories is an effective business tool: you can include snippets of your brand’s behind-the-scenes moments, call attention to important information or current deals, and organically foster more interaction and engagement with potential customers and current followers.
Build Connections with Messenger and Chatbots
Using Facebook Messenger to connect with and respond to customer messages is another way to build brand loyalty. A 2018 survey found that 61% of daily messaging app users in the United States said they had messaged a business in the last 3 months. Being available to current and potential customers is a wise business decision. If users message you or leave a review, it’s a good idea to get back to them as quickly as possible—whether the correspondence is positive or negative! Responding promptly and interacting with your current and potential customers shows that you value what they have to say and builds trust and reliability within your community—all elements that end up helping your organic reach.
And while you may be able to keep up with some of the communication on your own, you can’t spend all day responding to questions from followers. That’s where Facebook Chatbots come in. Chatbots are automated response tools available 24/7. Chatbots use AI to greet interested customers, make appointments, answer basic questions, and perform tasks. Best of all, you can program your bot to help you in the ways you need—so you are more available to apply the human touch to other areas of your business.
Be Authentic
Speaking of the human touch, don’t be afraid to be your authentic self on Facebook. Often, the polished, filtered version isn’t what people are looking for. Going into 2022, users are interested in authenticity and real human connection. So while your Facebook Chatbots can help answer messages at four o’clock in the morning, don’t forget to be a human when you can.
Remember that even though your page is supposed to be a promotional tool for your business, it should also have some elements of fun, whimsy, and work to build community. After all, Facebook’s mission is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” Your Business Page should aim to do just that—not simply be churning out promotional content.
Try Out A Poll
Another way to connect with your followers is by utilizing a Facebook poll. What better way to find out what users want than by asking them directly? You can create a group poll (the most common type that you’ve probably seen in your feed before), an event page poll for people involved in an event, a messenger poll for a smaller group of people in your chat group, and story polls. Polls can help you determine what kind of content to create, what your followers want to see more (and less!) of, and ultimately drive engagement. Plus, polls are a fun and interactive way to get immediate feedback. Once the poll finishes, you can even share the results, providing valuable social proof and making it more likely that people will want to do business with you. Research shows that 3 out of 4 users trust reviews they see online—even if they’re anonymous!
Share User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content is just what it sounds like: content such as posts, videos, images, or reviews that have been created by others. Sharing this content helps champion your followers, open up your brand to new audiences, and provide free advertising. It has swiftly become one of the most popular types of content on social media. A recent survey showed that consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic compared to brand-created content. Gain your followers’ trust (and ultimately their business) by sharing user-generated content that is relevant to your business, product, or brand. The more people engage with (ie share, comment on, and like) your post, the more reach you’ll get.
Cross-Promote Your Facebook Page
If you run a business or brand, you are likely publicizing your products or services on more than one platform. To increase organic reach on Facebook, use those other platforms to drive traffic to your Facebook Page. For example, put a link to your Business Page in your Instagram bio. Share your Facebook Page on your website or in emails. Add it to your LinkedIn profile or include mention of it in YouTube videos. With so many channels, it's important to make users across platforms aware of your Facebook Page.
Add a Group
Creating a Facebook Group is another way for businesses to boost engagement. With 1.8 billion people using Facebook Groups, it makes sense to create a space where you and your followers and potential customers can connect. Groups are places to build community: they’re where members can float ideas, ask questions, and even share gripes if necessary! Groups are places where business owners can offer special offers, deals, and content that can add value to their product or brand and allow group members to feel exclusive, ultimately deepening brand loyalty.
Try out the Facebook Pixel
If you don’t want to pay for advertising just yet, incorporate the Facebook Pixel. Facebook Pixel is a free analytics tool business owners can place on their websites to collect data and help explain users’ actions on your website. This data can help create targeted ads in the future, remarket your product or content to repeat visitors, and track important data such as conversions from Facebook. When you decide you’re ready to pay for advertising, you’ll have the data ready so you can make smart and financially savvy marketing and advertising choices.
Learn Facebook Marketing
Noble Desktop’s Facebook Marketing course provides an in-depth look at creating targeted ads, leveraging Facebook groups, and creating business pages within the platform. Students will also unpack the Facebook algorithm, get business account management tips, and learn how to set up the Facebook Pixel. You can attend this course in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or live online from anywhere in the world.
Those ready to dive into other platforms besides Facebook can look into Noble’s 30-hour Social Media Marketing Certificate. The curriculum gives participants a comprehensive overview of the industry. Hands-on training over five distinct units allows students to master various elements of social media marketing. Certificate program participants will learn how to determine the right social media platform for their goals, develop a successful social media strategy, and create content that increases engagement and drives sales. Expert instructors teach participants how to gain a following and underscore the importance of market positioning and using social media analytics to improve results. Noble even offers students a chance to retake the class for free within a year to drill down on challenging concepts or refresh their skills.
You can also find local and live online social media marketing courses, bootcamps, and certificate programs in your area using Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool.
Other social media marketing resources offered by Noble Desktop include its blog which has detailed articles about various social media marketing topics, and the Intro to Social Media Marketing seminar on YouTube, which gives in-depth descriptions about various social media platforms and strategies.