A better understanding of exactly when a brand’s potential audience is online and most receptive and responsive to content – gained through access to and better analysis of data – would go a long way to assisting social media managers combat the dwindling organic reach figures coming out of Facebook.
This is the opinion of Hellocomputer digital media director, Klaus Germann in response to a recent article by Facebook’s Brian Boland, who leads the medium’s Ads Product Marketing team. The article addresses the drop in organic reach on Facebook. [Organic reach being defined as the number of people someone (or a brand) can reach for free on Facebook by posting to their (or the brand’s) Page.]
Germann concedes that Boland confirms what he, and others in the industry, have known for some time now – that the increased activity on Facebook has created a situation where there is too much content to absorb, and Facebookers’ own filtering combined with the algorithm filtering have dramatically reduced the efficacy of brand presence on the medium.
“A key metric that should have accompanied Boland’s article is the fact that Facebook is one of the few mediums to post increasing engagement rates and clicks for its ads while the the vast majority of other online ad formats are experiencing declining engagement rates,” he says.
“So, knowing when the audience is most likely to be online and most receptive to brand messages or ads, and then putting interesting and engaging posts into the mix, should go a long way to achieving the brand’s reach objectives. Coupling this with targeted paid promotion of these posts will go a long way to exploiting the part of the Facebook algorithm that looks at engagement rates as a factor for determining the organic distribution of a post.
“Put another way, it is essential to understand the sweet spot of when and where the majority of your audience is physically on Facebook and most receptive to your posts. Posting at these times, coupled with paid promotion of said post, will ensure that you achieve the highest possible organic reach.
“This combination will make certain that your posts not only reach your target audience on Facebook but have the highest possible level of organic reach amongst your existing fans.”
