Facebook Feed Posts
The social media landscape is constantly evolving. As new apps emerge and dominate the space, older and more established social networks must adapt to keep up. Meanwhile, brands, content creators and influencers are competing for eyeballs across all of these platforms. In this attention economy where user engagement is the currency, how can you break through the noise and connect with your audience?
In recent years, Meta’s social platforms (Facebook and Instagram) have become more “pay-to-play”, making it difficult for brands to grow their online following organically. But as marketers social advertising to achieve their business goals, they need a strong organic social strategy working in tandem with their paid strategy.
It can be challenging to create content while trying to appease these ever-changing algorithms. But most social media algorithms are designed with one goal in mind: engagement.
Social networks want to keep users on their platforms for longer, and their algorithms decide what content to show users based on their engagement.
Engagement is a catch-all term for interactions taken by users on social media. These can include views, likes, reactions, comments, clicks, shares, re-posts, etc. Not all engagement is measured equally, of course. Most users will view a post and continue scrolling. But if the content really resonates with someone, they may like the post, leave a comment, or even send it to a friend. Also, not all engagement is positive. For instance, a news article can result in very high engagement, but may draw mostly negative reactions and angry comments.
To keep users engaged, social networks gradually tweak their algorithms to favor certain types of content over others. Just last year, the head of Instagram declared that “Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app” and shared the company’s plans to invest more heavily in video. Recently Facebook has been pivoting away from content and more toward communities, with less focus on the news feed and more focus on groups. As a result, many Facebook Pages have seen a dip in their organic reach and engagement.
Recently Facebook has been pivoting away from content and more toward communities, with less focus on the news feed and more focus on groups. As a result, many Facebook Pages have seen a dip in their organic reach and engagement.
At the same time, the rules of engagement are changing. Instagram no longer shows the number of likes on a post publicly. The prevalence of the “Discover” feed and “recommended posts” means that people are viewing content from topics they’re not following. This also means that just because someone follows your account doesn’t guarantee they will see your posts in their feed.
Therefore, the new metric for success is views, not followers. Instead of looking at vanity metrics (likes, comments, follower count) focus on valuable engagement – How many of your followers are actually engaging with your content? How many users watched until the end of your video? How can you convert your engaged followers into customers?
Social media platforms have evolved past the feed post and the perfectly curated photo grid. With so many new posting formats across social channels, it’s time for marketers to think outside the “grid”.
Below, I’ve outlined some tips to diversify your creative content to maximize your organic reach and engagement.
Facebook Feed Posts
Sharing links to Facebook will only get your posts buried in the feed. Facebook wants to keep users on their platform, not send them off to another website. Try sharing a native video or a text-based post and share the link separately in a comment. And whenever possible, utilize on-Facebook formats.
Hiring? Create a Facebook job posting and share it on your page. Hosting an event? Create a Facebook Event and invite your page followers. Want to drive leads? Add a call-to-action button to your post that allows people to click to call or message you.
Facebook/IG Live videos
Did you know starting a live video will send out a notification to all of your followers? This is a great way to capture engagement in the moment. There are plenty of ways to implement Live Video for your brand. Try going live on a regular schedule (weekly Q&As with your brand founder) or during special events (grand openings, product launches, behind the scenes, etc).
Facebook/IG Stories
Stories are temporary posts, making them a great format for sharing time sensitive content or just day-to-day behind the scenes. They can also be much more interactive and engaging than typical in-feed posts. Insert polls, Q&As, and other stickers to gauge viewers’ feedback.
Although stories disappear after 24 hours, there is a way for them to live permanently on your Instagram profile. Simply save them to your “Highlights”. You can use Highlights to categorize story content. For example, you can repost stories that customers have tagged you in and save them under a highlight named “Customer Testimonials”.
Facebook & Instagram Reels
Reels is Meta’s latest attempt to capture the TikTok audience with their own audio-based, short-form video format. Similar to TikTok whose “For You Page” shows users videos based on their interests, Reels gives creators a greater opportunity for organic reach since the algorithm favors relevance over views and engagement.
Chloe McGinley
Drive Your Meta Advertising Strategy Using Conversational Commerce
