Increase Your Facebook Reach in a Post-EdgeRank Era

It is now a well-known fact that Facebook Pages have seen an obvious reduction in their reach, with a small percentage of people are actually in direct interaction with the page’s content. In fact according to published statistics, the aforementioned percentage is said to be around somewhere between 12%-16%.

These changes can be owed to a recent algorithm update introduced by Facebook, called the EdgeRank. EdgeRank is an interesting algorithm. In short, EdgeRank dictates or determines what stories appear in each user’s newsfeeds, based on a little something called’ Edges’. Without going into too much details or technical nitty gritties, an Edge is any action that takes place on Facebook, and is made of of 3 elements called Affinity, Weight and Time Decay. (You can read all about it, in detail, on link 1 and link 2).  

But I digress. What it means is that you are reaching out to just a small percentage of your followers, and only a small number of the fans on your Facebook page can actually see your updates and your posts.

At the end of the day, all this comes down to three things: (a) giving up from using Facebook altogether, (b) paying Facebook to increase your reach and reach out to a larger number of fans, or (c) increase your reach using a vast array of different methods.

This article, of course, deals with the third option.

So then, what can you do in order to increase your Facebook reach, despite EdgeRank?

1. Improve your EdgeRank

As I mentioned before, EdgeRank is made up of a combination of factors, all of which determine which of your posts gets more visibility in your fan’s newsfeeds. One proven way to increase your Facebook page’s EdgeRank (and hence reach out to a larger number of your fans) is through posting multimedia-rich content and updates. Another way is to post updates (text-based, multimedia, etc.) that naturally garner a large response from your fans, and your fans interact (like, share, comment) with it. You could also use Facebook Questions (polls) as well. The takeaway from all this is that in order to improve your EdgeRank, it is essential to post engaging content, that is highly relevant to your fans, and would be of interest and use to them.

2. Work on getting more likes on your page

While it is generally believed that a smaller but a more targeted and engaged audience is better than having a large number of uninterested and untargeted Facebook fans, getting more ‘Likes’ on your page is still essential, as it directly correlates with how active your page is, as well as with the number of people who see your posts and updates and interact with them. It is therefore important to get a large amount of targeted likes on your Facebook page. In fact, Promoted Posts (more on that in a bit) also require Facebook pages to have a certain number of likes before the ability to sign up for it. Therefore try coming up with different ways and techniques that you can use in order to increase the number of fans on your Facebook page (giveaways in exchange for likes, putting your Facebook page URL on all print and business material.

3. Refrain from using social media dashboards…

Or third-part tools to manage your Facebook page. Yes, tools such as HootSuite and the like make life easier for page owners/managers, as these let you schedule updates, and easily manage and post to a multiple number of pages or accounts. However it is said that such tools also have a negative impact on your Facebook EdgeRank, as well as your page’s reach. If you want to improve your EdgeRank and attain the ability to reach out to a larger number of your fans, it is a trade-off that you’ll have to make. Or you could look into alternatives such as the one mentioned in the link above.

4. Sponsored or paid-for posts

With the introduction and changes to EdgeRank, you are actually required to pay Facebook just to reach out to more of your fans. You can buy ads, or have your page or its posts ‘Sponsored’ which will then show up as Sponsored Stories on the timelines of people you’ve targeted. If you’ve got the budget, and something to promote, it might be a good idea to look into this. Promoted posts are cheap, and come with a plethora of options as well, which allows you to create a promotion that will get you a good response, plenty of activity, and hopefully, more likes as well. Mobile ads are also worth looking into.

5. Other ways of increasing fan interaction

…includes things such as posting at the right time, such as when the people that you are targeting are actually on the internet, repurposing content, using humor and/or controversy to garner a larger response (remember, even negative publicity is good publicity!), and sharing useful links and information from external sources as well (other than your own website).

I would love hearing from you about this: what techniques or things do you use in order to increase your Facebook page’s reach and increase the activity on your page? What are your counter-EdgeRank tips for Facebook fanpage owners?