How to promote on Facebook Organically & Paid Campaigns?

Most people turn to social media when they are online. Facebook alone boasts of almost 2.5 billion monthly users. With so much potential, it is integral that you promote your brand on the platform effectively. With the options of organic and paid campaigns, we take a look at some of the best ways you can promote on Facebook using both methods. But before that, let’s first understand Facebook’s news feed algorithm and its workings.

Facebook decides how to rank a post on someone’s news feed based on three criteria:

• The publisher of the post:

Your post is more likely to rank high if your target audience usually interacts with your account by either engaging with your account contents, messaging you, or simply visiting your page.

• Post type: 

The types of posts that your target audience has previously engaged with is ranked higher on their news feed. For example, if your followers often engage with video posts in general, i.e. on your account as well as other accounts, then your video posts would appear at the top of their feeds. 

• Engagement on the post: 

Your posts that are receiving more reactions, comments, and shares from the users are ranked higher in people’s news feeds. 

Once you’ve understood how Facebook’s ranking works, it may seem like an easy task to promote your brand on the site. But that’s not always the case, especially if you’re looking for an organic reach. With Facebook prioritizing friends and family accounts over brands, it has become difficult for businesses to increase their customer base through this medium without paying ads. However, there are a number of tactics you can use to promote yourself on the platform organically. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective ways you can do so:

1. Posting carefully selected content

It is extremely easy to lose followers on the platform. With just a click of a button, users can unfollow people and companies they do not find relevant anymore. This makes it harder for brands to maintain their follower count. One way brands can do this is by posting valuable content that resonates with their followers. By making use of Facebook Insights, you can find your top-performing posts and understand what your followers like. You can then curate posts in the same niche or in a similar form to continue giving users content that they like.

Apart from the written content, you should share high-resolution images and videos along with your posts, as well as use various post formats to make your profile interesting.

2. Asking your followers to give you priority

If your account posts content that your followers genuinely like, they won’t mind prioritizing your account if you ask them to. When you’re encouraging your followers to prioritize you on the website, make sure to show them the process of how it’s done. This would lead to more users doing so as there might be some people who might not be aware of how its done. 

You can also invite your followers to turn on notifications for your posts. This way, every time you post on your account, they will get a notification about it and your content will be displayed at the top of their feeds.

3. Engaging with users

Without crossing into misleading clickbait territory, you can encourage users to like or comment on your posts by asking them a question or getting their opinion on a certain topic. Such posts with higher engagement tend to appear higher on News Feeds, thus increasing your reach on the platform.

You can also make use of Facebook groups, considering their higher popularity in comparison to pages. It will allow you to engage with the members and gain new insights from the customer’s perspective. Moreover, you get to promote your content to a greater number of users who might end up as new followers for your page.

4. Attracting relevant fans

A large following might enhance your credibility, but it’s important to understand that quality will always be better than quantity. Irrespective of the number of followers that you have, if they aren’t interested in your content and business, they will not engage with your account.

One way you can increase relevant followers for your brand is by engaging with your competitors’ followers. Facebook’s Insights page has a section called “Pages to Watch” wherein you can find your competitor's accounts. Use those accounts to search for their followers who engage with the posts on those accounts and engage with such fans yourself.

5. Posting content that is evergreen

Evergreen content is content that is always relevant as it is not related to current events or trends. Such posts have a higher potential of generating engagement even weeks after they are published. This is important to note because Facebook does not organize posts chronologically, so there are chances for a post that was published weeks before to still appear higher on news feeds.

6. Facebook Contests

It’s human nature to get involved in something that has a winning prize. You can use this to your advantage by running a contest on the platform. Not only will this catch your followers’ attention, it will also get them to engage with your post, giving your posts the chance to appear at the top of news feeds. One common way marketers run social media contests is by getting their followers to tag their friends in the comments section of the contest post. Along with increasing engagement, this also increases your reach and gets your account to potential followers. 

7. Partnering and collaborating

By exchanging guest posts or collaborating on videos with brands in the same niche, you can expand your reach to include their followers and they can do the same with yours. Because it involves both parties getting benefitted, it does not usually include any payment. 

Another great way to expand your reach is by partnering with influencers. Especially in today’s world, where millennials and generation Z get swayed by the influence of social media stars, partnering with such accounts is essential. This is sometimes done by paying the influencers to give your brand a shoutout, or by sending them your products for a shoutout or review. 

8. Hashtags

Hashtags help users find your posts more easily. They organize content based on the description of the tags. For example, if someone searches for a celebrity’s name on Facebook, posts with hashtags of the celebrity’s name will appear in the search results. One thing to keep in mind when using hashtags is that they should be specific rather than broad keywords. Specific keywords are more likely to be searched by people. Consider what you would search for as a consumer and make use of such hashtags in your posts.

9. Make your page into a community hub

Facebook is a platform where users like to share their ideas and opinions on different things. Inviting people to do so on your page is an interesting way to build reach. You can host participative sessions like Q & A sessions or weekly chats that could lead to discussions relevant to your brand’s industry. Your followers could use these as a way to learn new information or as a platform to share their views on the topic. This would get them more interested and hooked to your brand, giving you relevant followers. 

10. Facebook Live

Facebook Live gives you the chance to show your brand in action, without any covers. When people get to see the real side of you or your company without any barriers, they feel more connected and are more likely to prioritize your account over other brands. Moreover, every time you start live streaming, your followers will receive a notification for the same, getting your brand’s name in their awareness. Users are also more engaged with live videos, getting Facebook to consider your account as one which people are engaging with, thus boosting its rank on their news feeds.

11. Promote yourself on other social platforms

One way to increase your Facebook following is by letting followers on your other social networks know about your account on this platform. This does not mean you mention links to your Facebook account on all posts on your other accounts. You can instead just include a link to your Facebook account in the bio section of your social media accounts. 

12. Post at the right time

No matter how perfect your content is, it won’t be able to get enough audience if you don’t post it at the right time. For example, if you publish a post at 3 a.m., the majority of your target audience is going to be asleep. When they wake up and do check their feed later in the day, your post would have been lost in their feed. 

It is impossible to find one specific time where all your followers would be online, but experimenting with different times of the day for your posts and using Facebook’s Insights tab is proven to be effective for understanding when followers are most active. 

13. Don’t post too much or too less

The consistency and frequency of your posts play a big role in expanding your organic reach. Not posting enough or posting too much is going to affect your follower count. By experimenting with the frequency of your posts each day and using Facebook’s analytics to understand the effects, you will be able to understand what kind of a pattern your followers prefer. 

14. Make Sure All Links Lead to Quality, Fast-Loading Sites

Having high-quality content is not sufficient for your posts; the accompanying links with them should also be such that they lead to high-quality sites that load fast. If your followers are redirected to websites that take ages to load, they would be less interested in engaging with your posts next time. 

15. User-generated content

When you share content created by a user, other users perceive you to be a brand that is trusted by the community. Such content is more likely to draw the attention of other users. This usually has a positive result on your engagement levels, resulting in an increase in your organic reach. Some ways you can get your followers to contribute to your content is by inviting them through contests, reviews, or hashtag campaigns. This way, you’ll not just get new ideas for your content, but you’ll also be able to build a better reputation for your brand.

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Paid promotions are also an easy and effective way to promote your page on Facebook. With as little as a few dollars, you can boost your Facebook posts to reach a higher and more targeted audience base. Boosted posts are different from Facebook ads. They give you an outlet to increase your reach while Facebook ads allow you to achieve much more with a variety of ad types like ‘Call-to-action button promotions’ and ‘multi-product carousel ads’. It is important to note that Facebook advertising requires testing, and you might not get the effect the first time you advertise. It is thus recommended that you employ a range of methods for promoting your Facebook posts that included organic as well as paid campaigns.

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