Consider these four questions while re-evaluating your marketing and selling strategy

Facebook is doing away with its Audience Insights tool starting July 1, 2021. Instead, you’ll want to use Facebook Business Suite Insights.

BY ELIZABETH BREEDLOVE

Facebook may be “old news” compared to other, newer social networks such as TikTok or Clubhouse, but it’s still the dominant social platform with more than 2.8 billion monthly active users. 

Earlier this year, Hubspot compiled and shared these statistics about Facebook:

  • Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults visit Facebook every day.
  • In 2018, 78 percent of U.S. consumers made purchases through discoveries on Facebook.
  • U.S adult users spend an average of 33 minutes per day on Facebook.

If your business is on Facebook, how does it stack up? Are you reaching your audience there? Are you seeing your audience grow?

If things seem to be lacking, it may be worth reconsidering your strategy. Once you understand who your audience is and what they like, you can use the Facebook algorithm in your favor to improve your organic reach on the platform.

 

What kind of page are you?

When was the last time you thought about who your audience is and what they do on Facebook? 

In the past, you could use Facebook’s Audience Insights tool to identify and learn more about your audience on the platform. But Facebook is doing away with this tool starting July 1, 2021.

Instead, you’ll want to use Facebook Business Suite Insights, which will allow you to access Audience Insights across both Facebook and Instagram. With this tool, you’ll be able to access data about your audience such as page likes, age, gender, location and interests. 

Using this data, you should be able to form an idea of who your audience is. Once you have a handle on this, you can begin to determine which pages they like on Facebook.

This is where your strategy comes into play. By associating yourself with the pages your audience already likes, you’ll begin to send signals to the Facebook algorithm about what kind of page you are, which in turn helps the algorithm put your page in front of the right audience. 

To do this, begin interacting with pages similar to your business’s page.

Like images they post. Comment on links they share. Share videos they post to your own page. Engage with similar pages with large audiences over a long time, and the algorithm will begin to associate your page with theirs. 

 

What kinds of messages do you share?

While you’re working to build a reputation as a page similar to the pages your audience already likes and engages with, you can also work on perfecting your message. As you’re thinking through your messaging, remember: It’s not about you. It’s about your audience. 

In other words, go beyond crafting a message describing what you offer that you think your audience will like. Instead, think about what your audience wants others to know about them, the key to audience interaction. 

Remember, nothing on Facebook is private. So provide a message that your audience will want for interaction. 

For example, if you’ve invented a product that makes homes smell fresh, don’t have your messaging focus on stinky homes; focus on clean, cozy, great-smelling homes. 

And remember: Promotional content is OK in moderation, but it’s not the best way to grow your reach. More on this next.

 

What kind of engagement do you need to improve your reach?

Now that you’ve started to associate yourself with things your audience already likes and you have a general idea of your message, you can start to craft content that will lead to engagement and increase your reach. But remember, on Facebook not all engagement is created equal. 

Engagement such as likes or reactions, comments and shares all send different signals to the Facebook algorithm. Generally speaking, actions such as comments and shares carry more weight than likes and reactions.

 A well-rounded page full of engaging content that gets likes, reactions, comments and share is almost certainly going to make the biggest impact on your overall organic reach.

Some strategies to get different types of engagement and send signals to the Facebook algorithm so that you can grow your organic reach:

  • Photos, images and memes tend to get the most likes. These are easily viewed as users scroll down their news feed, and it’s easy to tap the “like” button and keep scrolling. Per We Are Social, on average in 2021, 35.7 percent of posts from a Facebook page are images. 
  • Videos can be a very effective way to get someone to share your content. Facebook makes it easy for someone to share a video to its newsfeed, through Messenger, through WhatsApp, to a group, to a page, and even to Twitter. It’s up to you, though, to create a video worth sharing. Remember that many people watch videos with the sound off, so consider captioning the video or using animated words. 
  • Start a conversation to get comments. For example, ask a question that you know nearly everyone in your audience could answer, or post an unpopular opinion and ask whether people agree or disagree.

 

What can you do with your improved reach?

Remember, Facebook marketing—and social media marketing in general—is a long game. You’re not going for shallow engagement and viral content, though of course it can be nice if it happens. Your goal is to build loyal brand advocates who will support your business and engage with your content to help you continue to grow your reach.

Once you start to see your reach growing, continue to follow the same strategy while also learning from what is and isn’t working. Aim for about 80 percent of your content to be focused on getting engagement and building up your reach; use the other 20 percent to promote your product.

You’ll see much better results this way as you provide interesting content and build a relationship with your audience before trying to make a sale.