With Facebook throttling the organic reach of posts so that very few (approx. 15%) of those who’ve liked a page will actually see them, are paid ads the only way to go?

There are certain benefits:

• they practically guarantee many more visits and likes
• they allow you to target your audience more thoroughly
• the comparative cost of a Facebook ad is much lower than traditional methods

You do need to spend money to be widely discovered – but then you need to bear in mind that the more ‘likes’ your page has (50k plus) the more FB will throttle, bizarrely.

So promote to a specific and targeted audience, define your goals and approach, and remember, quality not quantity, always. (And don’t forget to end the campaign – Facebook will continue to collect payment!)

However, for those – particularly starts ups or community groups – with a low or zero marketing budget, there are some hints to help you grow organically:

• Think about how you yourself use Facebook as a consumer – this will guide you as a business.
• Use the settings tool as much as possible to target your page to your ideal audience.
• The more you target your page, the more people will find you in their searches. The broader the activity, the more exposure you’ll likely get.
• Embed your Facebook page in your website

When posting:

• Ask questions – these get a better a response than stating a fact.
• Photos – visuals greatly aid engagement, but you must caption the picture, even if only one word.
• Do not use the word ‘share’ in your post – FB doesn’t like it and purposely won’t.
• Videos – even greater engagement than photos, but again, you need to caption it.
• Make any post a compelling read – why should someone click that link? It has to matter to them.
• Create content and post it direct on Facebook in real time. It doesn’t like Twitter and Hootsuite etc feeding into it and will ignore. Facebook wants you to post personally to your page so you see their adverts – that’s where it generates its revenue. Even its own scheduling tool, in my experience, doesn’t gain you as much exposure as a ‘live’ post.
• FREE – what can you offer? We all love the word FREE – especially if it’s big, bold and red!

• Post one quality post per day. Ensure your feed shows a nice variety of posts.
• Add a thumbnail image and a comment on any shared post.
• Think about when and what you’re posting. Food photos will likely do best at lunchtime or teatime!
• Have a good strong headline and call to action.

And to end on a slightly chilling note: Remember, Facebook knows you better than your friends do – which helps to target!

Images: Pixabay One/Two/Three