For years it seems like all we’ve heard is that organic reach on Facebook is dead. If you want to reach people, you must pay for Facebook ads. Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is, organic reach on Facebook is not dead. The bad news is, you have to be creative, smart and committed to get the organic reach you’re looking for. And, be prepared to put yourself out there.
There are basically two kinds of Facebook users: Consumers and creators. Most are consumers when they start out on Facebook and many never stray away from that. But, when you shift from being a consumer to becoming a creator who’s building a personal brand or a small business, your personal profile needs to reflect that change so you attract the right community of people. Your personal profile should include your business or company that you represent so that people can click on it and have them brought directly to that business page. With that said, make sure you are posting quality and relevant content consistently on your business page.
Now for the magic.
Join Facebook groups that reflect what your ideal client enjoys.
If you have a beauty and fashion brand, join groups where the members talk about that sort of thing. If you’re a part of a community organization, join local groups that talk about the community. If you’re in health and wellness, join a group where members talk about living their best life. If you’re a local business, stick with groups within your area.
Visit other business pages that align with your ideal client.
Again, using the three examples from the last page, if you’re dealing with beauty and fashion, find pages where your ideal client (women, ages 30-65, for example) like to hang out. If you’re a community organization, the pages you will visit might be the Humane Society, United Way or the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. If you’re trying to reach those that care about health and wellness, visit pages like massage therapists, chiropractors and health food stores. Again, if you’re a local business make sure each of these pages have a local presence so that comments will be from those who live in your locale.
Try visiting only pages that are verified as they they’re typically bigger, more creative in their regular content and have more engagement. Those pages have a blue check mark next to their name on their page. But don’t sweat it, not many business pages are verified, so it’s not the end all, be all.
Leverage notifications to grow your network.
One key organic growth tip is to get into other people’s notifications with your name attached. If you can get this action down, you’ll be able to build organically on any social media platform.
In both groups and business pages, if you see someone in the comments who has a question and you know how to respond, answer it. If you love the post and admire the aesthetic, say so! If you have thoughts about the quote or the copy in their post, reply! This does not have to take hours or even minutes. You should be able to respond to a post in seconds. In fact, anytime there are multiple people tagged in a comment, react to the comment itself AND also respond in the comments. If 20 people are tagged in that comment, all 20 people are going to get a notification from you and you have just leveraged your time even more!
You can comment and “Like” from both your personal profile and your business page. It’s up to you which one you do it from. It’s not always about taking the short cut, however.
Find the right people to reach out to/connect with.
Another technique is networking via your personal profile with top fans of other business pages. You can find the Top Fans list on the Community tab of a business page.
A few things to consider when using this technique:
- Choose people who have a picture of their face—not a dog, a flower, or a child—because if they’re willing to show their face on Facebook, they’re probably a little more open to communicating with others.
- Look for people who fit into your target audience (again, it’s all about knowing exactly who your ideal client is). Do this by clicking over to their profile and look for indicators that will confirm if they are, or are not, someone who fits your ideal target client profile.
- Then, start “Liking” and commenting on multiple posts so people get three or four notifications at a time. Make genuine comments on their posts that would require a response.
Leverage Facebook Events
Try using your page and profile to co-host the event. Create the event from your business page, then co-host the Facebook event via your personal profile. Post about the event on your personal profile and invite people from your personal profile friends list to your page’s event. You can see who’s interested in your content by noticing who clicks ‘going’ or ‘interested’ on your events. You can focus on strengthening the relationship with those people and interacting more with them on their profiles.
Deliver value on day one to encourage event invitation “Shares”. Let’s say you’re hosting a week-long series on a topic and it starts on Monday with the grand finale on Friday. Don’t leave your awesome stuff for the last day because most people won’t make it to the end of the event. Make sure that your juicy stuff is always on the first day and pour it on them. That way, they’re more likely to pass along that event invitation to their network for the first day versus the last day.
Leverage your Facebook page and profile together. As you create content on your business page, tag your personal profile in around 90% of the posts, especially live videos. And don’t just use the tag feature. Actually tag your name from your profile in the description of the post or the video.
Create the video as your business page and then tag your personal profile. When you do that, you’ll get a notification on your profile that says, “This page tagged you in a post. Do you want to allow it to your timeline?” Allow it, and that video you created as your page is also going to show up on your personal profile’s timeline, natively. It’s in two places at once and will get better reach because you’re co-authoring it from your personal profile. Because of the previous tips and strategies, there are new visitors to your profile. When they view your profile, they’ll see post after post on your timeline tagging you from your business page, and they can like or comment on any of those posts. Then you can invite them to like your page because they just liked a post that was authored by your page, even though it’s showing up on your profile timeline.
When you don’t have a budget for advertising, try these strategies out. It will take time and commitment, but in the end, you’ll see organic growth.