Its no secret that Facebook’s organic reach has gone down 50% over the past three years. Every page has felt the impact, including our own.

The reason for this is twofold.

• Facebook wants their users to see just the “right amount” of new content to keep coming back, so they’ve cut out the clutter.
• And of course, they want you to spend on advertising to make up for the lack of organic reach as well.

So it’s a win-win for Facebook, but not so much for the average page manager. Sure, you could toss some money into native advertising (which can work) but that’s a full-time job that requires a hefty investment.

As an alternative, you use these strategies to grow organic reach starting with…

• Knowing what keywords can optimize your content

There are two ways to do this.

• Connect the keywords you’ve used in the past to your best content. Start by simply filtering down your most successful posts in your page management interface and looking at the keywords highlighted there.
• Look at what your competitors are having success with by going to Buzzsumo.

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You don’t have to use the paid version of Buzzsumo to get this awesome function either. Just type in the keyword you want to see highlighted, the date range, and the content type you’re interested in.

This information lets you know exactly what your audience wants more of what keywords to use.

• Knowing how to use Audience Optimization & Post Targeting

Last month Facebook released their audience optimization tool to allow publishers to slim down on those who would be interested in their posts; increasing relevancy. But relevancy doesn’t always increase organic reach, so use it sparingly.

On the other hand, organic post targeting can increase your Facebook organic reach, especially if you have a large audience. After turning on organic post targeting in your settings, just set a desired target audience for each post before publishing.

This tool allows your posts to increase engagement, thus furthering the reach of each post through Facebook’s algorithm.

• Know when to post for maximum reach

Have you tried posting in the late evening yet? Most page managers post at about the same time everyday and don’t actually look at what the numbers are telling them.

Using Facebook insights to check optimal post times after some experimentation can reveal some surprising results.

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• Reaching further with the right content type

Because Facebook’s algorithm spreads content further if it has been highly engaged with, looking at Facebook insights will help you create more of what your audience wants. You can make absolutely sure you’re distributing the right type of content by combining this strategy with point one mentioned above.

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Every page has a following that wants something different. Visual storytelling is huge in 2016, as this screenshot from Facebook insights proves.

We’ve used these strategies to boost Facebook organic reach and many more.

When you’re ready to get serious about social media, let us know here.