15 Ways for Your Organization to Respond to the FB Apocalypse

You may have noticed that your organization’s Facebook page posts are getting a lot less reach and engagement.

You are not alone!

Facebook’s new mission statement has dealt what is being interpreted as a near death blow to page reach and engagement.

If your posts aren’t generating what Facebook has termed “meaningful engagement” from a significant number of users, then the algorithm is choosing not to show your posts but to a sliver of your audience.

So, how should your organization respond to the threat?

Here are 15 tactics for you to consider:

• Create a Facebook Group. If you don’t already have a Facebook group, start one. It seems that Facebook has decided that groups are the very definition of “meaningful engagement” so they are highlighting group discussions through News Feed notifications.
• Engage Through Content. Start posting content that generates “meaningful engagement.” This could be as simple as asking questions (keep them simple and easy to answer). It could be asking for images from last night’s snowfall or rainbow. It could be asking for a response to a hot local or industry topic, depending on if your organization is local, national or global.
• Up the Ad Budget. Facebook ads are still very effective and reasonably priced if you employ a few easy strategies. If you are a local organization, geotarget your ads. Make sure you have the Facebook pixel on your site and target your recent website visitors. Boost your best posts. Facebook will tell you when a post has done particularly well. When you boost those, you will get great reach at a very low price. Finally, create custom Facebook audiences. This is where you upload your membership email list, for instance, and create a unique audience for your ads to reach. In general, the better your targeting the lower the cost and better the ROI.
• Post More LIVE Video. The Facebook algorithm sure seems to favor live video, even over uploaded videos. Pop into a member’s business and interview the member to get their story. People love to hear stories. You can do this virtually also. Check out the BlueJeans video service for live streaming onto your page or into your Facebook group.
• Run Contests. You can get amazing amounts of engagement when running Facebook contests. Just be sure to stick within Facebook’s terms of service (TOS). I recommend you use Woobox as a 3^rd party contest tool.
• Share Proven Winners. Never share posts that are duds. If it was a dud (no likes, comments, shares) for your member, chances are it will be a dud for you. On the other hand, when a member posts something that does really well, that is a signal that you could share it and get similar results.
• Highlight Your Volunteers, Members, Award Winners, etc. People respond to feel good news stories and photos of people they know. Combine those with a post highlighting a beloved community or industry member and you have a post that is almost sure to generate “meaningful engagement.”
• Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket. If you aren’t already active on Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, and your target market is there, you should take a hard look at those platforms. If your Facebook page’s reach is practically nil, what do you have to lose?
• Build up Your Facebook Messenger Subscriber List. Messenger is growing like mad and Facebook has opened it up to allowing subscribers. Check out the tool ManyChat. Similar to email marketing but with much higher open rates. Messenger could be the next big thing in digital marketing.
• Grow Your Email List. Social media has always been very hit or miss on reaching your audience. But email (like Messenger) is very different. Your email waits in a person’s inbox until they either open it or delete it.
• Recruit Social Media Ambassadors. Encourage and teach your members and volunteers to be social media ambassadors by performing “meaningful engagement” on your organization’s Facebook page posts. By getting quick engagement, Facebook will see that the post is interesting, and it should get significantly more reach and engagement.
• Break the Ice. If you don’t have social media ambassadors commenting on all your posts, at least make sure that you are commenting on them. Many people are afraid to be the first commenter, so by breaking the ice, you make it more likely others will engage. Plus, that first post could be a signal to Facebook to increase the reach of the post.
• Tell Stories. Facebook’s Story feature is working. If it seems a lot like Snapchat feature where the content disappears after 24 hours, that’s because it is. Instagram stories is used by about 250 million people daily and Facebook is hoping to land an equally large audience. Because of this, it can be assumed that FB will give more “play” to these posts.
• Use Hashtags and Tag People. Make sure you are using your own hashtag and any other appropriate hashtags. This will put you in the search results of anyone searching by those hashtags. Also, tag people in your photos. They will get notified and will be likely to engage on the post.
• Post Thumb-stopping Motivational and Inspirational Image Quotes. Quality image posts generally get likes, comments, and shares, especially if the text area asks a question. For access to 750 (chamber specific) quote images go to http://bit.ly/FJKCMB

How are you going to respond to this new reality?

Join in the conversation at http://bit.ly/FJKFBA (Facebook group Chamber Professionals Community)