It might be dramatic to say that no one sees your Facebook Business Page posts. We all have those top fans who happen to like every post but it does seem like business page posts are being seen by fewer and fewer people lately.
There are some reasons for that. Let me explain and give you some tips to overcome so that more people start seeing your Facebook posts.
There’s a lot of competition on Facebook
There are 27.4 billion Facebook monthly users. Plus there are over 60 million business pages on Facebook.
That’s a lot of posts! Every time you post something from your business, you compete against other people on Facebook.
Let me explain in a simple way. Let’s say I have 100 Facebook friends and I like 20 business pages. Each day when I log into Facebook, Facebook decides what content I’m going to see first.
I’ll scroll through my newsfeed and see my best friend’s posts or posts from my family because Facebook knows I interact with these people a lot. I might see some posts from businesses too but only if I’ve been interacting with the business in the past or the post seems really engaging.
Facebook wants to keep me on the platform for as long as possible. If I log in and see boring content from 20 businesses that I follow, I’ll check out. I’ll move on to the next platform that’s more engaging.
When you’re posting on social media from a business page, you have to keep in mind that you’re competing against someone’s friends and family. You have to be more engaging than that! It’s a big ask.
Groups and Advertising
Now that was a simplified version of what you see in your newsfeed but you’ll also see content from groups or from advertisers. Again, that’s something business pages have to compete against.
If you’ve heard people talk about how important Facebook groups are, it’s because those groups can be more engaging than the normal business page and are more likely to show up in the feed because of that.
You may also just say, “You know what? I can’t be more engaging than someone’s family, so I’m going to pay to be in that newsfeed.” That’s what advertising does. Granted you still want your ads to be engaging but it helps you jump the line a bit so that your content is shown to the people you want.
If you want to learn more about advertising, here’s a quick video that I did explaining some of the most effective ads (retargeting).
Facebook wants your money
Facebook is a business. It provides a free service to users but in exchange Facebook collects data and then uses that data to provide businesses with targeted ads.
Facebook doesn’t need more content. It doesn’t need more people posting on the platform. There are plenty of people and plenty of business pages. Facebook wants to make money.
There’s that famous scene of Mark Zuckerberg at Congress being asked how a free site even makes money. His response? “Senator, we run ads.”
That’s it. Facebook is an advertising platform. Sure it’s also a social media platform where you can chat with your friends and family but no one would provide that service completely free. You are the product and business pages have to pay to get access to you.
Now, I’m not saying you need to spend thousands of dollars on Facebook ads. I’m a big fan of micro-advertising. Since I work with a lot of local service providers, that tends to be what works best. I might put $5 behind one post each week just to make sure the content gets seen.
That strategy also helps in the long-run. I put $5 towards one post and now 5 more people liked that post. Well now, Facebook thinks my content is more engaging so my next post will get shown to more people without any budget.
I still have to keep putting money behind it because otherwise, you end up in the same place you are now, with low engagement rates.
Videos take priority
It’s important to know about the ongoing feud between Facebook and Google (there’s also a feud between Apple and Facebook but that’s a story for another day.)
Since Facebook sees Google, and YouTube specifically, as their main competitor, Facebook values video content more than any other type of content.
Videos are engaging and they keep people on the platform more frequently. In fact, there’s a quote from Mark Zuckerberg saying that he thinks Facebook will be mostly video content by 2021. Well, that’s here. I don’t think photos will ever go away from Facebook but videos are certainly more important.
Keep in mind, you don’t want to share a link to a YouTube video on your Facebook page. There may be exceptions to this but mostly, you want to upload your videos directly into Facebook. They’ll look better and perform better.
Live videos are also a priority for Facebook. Again, it’s a way to keep people on the platform. If you know that you’ll only get to experience a video live once, you’re more likely to stick through the whole thing. That live element is exciting and drives people’s sense of FOMO.
What you can do to improve your Facebook reach (without ads)
If you don’t want to do advertising on Facebook, even the micro ads that I mentioned, then you’ll have to work on some other tactics for growth on Facebook.
The first should be obvious, but you’ll want to start including more videos. Treat Facebook more like a video platform. You can even treat it like YouTube if you’re so inclined.
However, I don’t want to just tell you to do videos. I work with a lot of small businesses and service providers who don’t have video production skills or time to do videos.
There are opportunities to do very short videos like Boomerangs or even graphic videos through Canva or other sites. So don’t write it off completely but if you know that you’re not going to get into videos, you’ll want to rethink your Facebook strategy.
This is something that I’ve had to do recently. I do micro ads and I’m going to start incorporating more videos but I started thinking that maybe my Facebook Business page doesn’t matter.
Rethinking your Facebook strategy for 2021 so people do see your Facebook Business Page posts
Now, I’m not saying to abandon Facebook altogether, but you can start thinking about using Facebook for business in new ways.
In the last month, I’ve grown my Instagram following by more than 30% and I used Facebook to do it. Specifically, I used Facebook groups.
You can join a variety of Facebook groups. Think about what groups your ideal client might be in or even just others in your industry.
These groups usually have rules against self-promotion but there are ways around that.
Sometimes, people will post something saying “I want to connect with other people in this industry. Let me know your Instagram account and I’ll follow you.”
People love it! It’s a chance for them to gain a new follower, but it’s also a chance for you to gain a new follower back.
I’ve also used a tactic where I share a big win that I have on my social media. I might screenshot a post that I did on Instagram and share how excited I am about it going viral. That’s not exactly self-promotion but it gets a whole group of people to see my content and they might just want to follow me to see more.
I think that groups are the way forward for Facebook in 2021. Yes, you can make your own group but there are plenty of groups that are already established for you to be a part of. It’s an easy way to build some genuine connections and make sales on Facebook.