Facebook Reach Drops for Pages

This week Social Flow released a study on 3,000 pages that use their service. The study said that since January, the reach of pages dropped 42%. This is a massive drop. Granted, they say that this is an average of clients they have and it may not be the overall picture of Facebook. You will need to look at your data to see if this is happening.

Below is a Facebook Live video of them presenting the information. It’s about 7 minutes long and worth a look.

Over the last few months I have seen the reach and engagement fall on pages I manage or have managed. I wasn’t sure if it was an overall trend or strategy on the pages. Small businesses have it a little harder on Facebook. Usually the budgets aren’t there for a rich paid social media campaign. Most of the brands I have worked with, didn’t have paid social as a strategy. It’s not easy to convince someone to place an ad on a service that is “free.”

It’s becoming even more pay or play on Facebook. It will also be my fear on Instagram. I may sound like Chicken Little and the sky is falling about the Instgram feed. I feel I am justified in that Instgram is owned by Facebook. It only makes sense they will use the same strategy on there.

Paid social is becoming a very important part of a social media strategy. If you have something you are promoting you need to place an ad to get significant traction. As I have pointed out a few times, it doesn’t take a big budget to get your money’s worth. For as little as $25 can get you more likes, impressions and shares.

I have talked to a few friends that work at big brands and they said fan acquisition is done through paid social now. The days of steady growth in pages is gone. If you have a page from before 2011, you know what I am talking about with Facebook. You would have really great growth and gain fans easily. And this was a time when graphics/videos weren’t too widely used on the service.

How do you get around the decline in reach? What strategies are working for you that you can share with others?

 

 

Tim is the founder of Element33. A social media agency specializing in education, management and strategy for small businesses. He comes from a traditional marketing agency but has embraced all things digital. He considers himself a marketing nerd and believes that all marketing is tied together. This means no matter what silo you are in, social, email, seach, etc, changes in one will affect the other!

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