If you have a Facebook business page, you have probably either seen the Facebook Insights tool or have been prompted by Facebook to use it.
If you haven’t seen it yet, this is what it looks like.
It’s a robust and comprehensive collection of data points and metrics page owners can use to keep track of how their social media content performs on Facebook. One of the key metrics is Post Reach.
Post Reach basically measure how many Facebook users saw your posts. This is an important metric to track because it measure not just people who like your page, but their friends and their friends’ friends.
When you post something on Facebook, several things determine how often it shows up on Facebook news feeds.
1. Number of page likes
If your Facebook page has few likes, then your content will show up on very few news feeds. Facebook never shows your content on the news feeds of everyone who likes your page, only a small portion of them. My poorest performing content shows up on the news feeds of only 1% of those who like my page.
Increase followers to increase reach.
2. Time of day
If you post something when most of your Facebook fans are away from their screen, then few people will see it. Luckily, Facebook has an Insights option to show you when your page fans are more likely to be on Facebook.
Just click on “Posts” at the top of the page. Here, you can see my fans are on Facebook fairly consistently between 8:00 and 21:00.
Post during popular times of the day to increase reach.
3. Content interactions
Each time one of your page fans likes or comments on your content, it shows up in the news feeds of some of their friends, indicating that they liked or commented on the post. Same goes for shares, but that is probably more obvious.
Produce content that encourages likes, comments, and shares to increase reach.
4. Viral content
The more likes, comments, and shares your content receives, the more viral Facebook will rate it. The more viral your content becomes, the higher the proportion of Facebook users who will see the content. Where content that has no likes might reach only 1% of your page fans, viral content could reach all of your fans and even numbers that bypass your total page likes.
Produce viral content to increase reach.
Facebook reach is a critical component of any Facebook page monitoring. Knowing what affects it will help you use it to your advantage. How have you increased your page’s Facebook reach?