If you are already in business or are starting to create a digital marketing strategy for your business, you know that the first step to success online is to generate traffic (visitors) to your site, blog and other platforms. People need to find it in the virtual world. This is how you can achieve […]
If you are already in business or are starting to create a digital marketing strategy for your business, you know that the first step to success online is to generate traffic (visitors) to your site, blog and other platforms.
People need to find it in the virtual world. This is how you can get new contacts, generate qualified leads, convert sales, and engage people.
Among the means to do this are paid traffic (disclosures or sponsored links) and content marketers’ “eye candy”, organic traffic. Organic traffic is traffic generated through search engine strategies and search engines and has no direct cost for the views you receive.
Therefore, in this article, we will explain in detail how to increase your organic traffic on one of the main internet platforms: Facebook.
Social Networking and Inbound Marketing for Facebook Organic Traffic Generation
First, if your goal is to increase organic traffic, you need to think about Inbound Marketing.
Believe! Without a well-defined content marketing strategy, increasing traffic will be more difficult than trying to earn in mega-senna.
Social networks are excellent doors to attract your audience. They are at the top of the “digital chain,” millions of unique users accessing these platforms from multiple devices for a significant amount of their daily browsing routine.
Especially in the giant Facebook, the social network that gains with some advantage of other platforms of its kind. To give you an idea there are over 1.28 billion active profiles in the world. With all this market potential, Facebook has become an essential tool in digital marketing strategies.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that one of the three pillars of inbound marketing in strategy development is precisely social media (the other two pillars are SEO and content ).
However, despite the potential of social media, less than half of companies are concerned with developing consistent planning and networking strategies. Many brands have a simplistic view and believe that just being present, having a Facebook profile and posting schedule will be enough to attract their target audience.
But, demystifying a very common misconception, contrary to what many people think, generating organic traffic is not an easy and much less free task.
After all, you will need to produce qualified content that takes the time and investment that is right for your goals. Efforts, however, can be scaled to the budget your business (small, medium or large) has available and get higher returns over the medium to long term than paid traffic.
To be effective you will need to research and consider a number of variables: who is your target audience? What are your interests? What is your browsing behaviour? And many other issues.
It is this information that will help you create “magnet content” (qualified), magnetic enough to attract potential customers to your brand, generating more organic traffic and hence the ability to generate leads.
Challenges: Facebook changes and declining organic reach
Facebook’s organic reach has plummeted and is reaching everyone.
Over the past year, Facebook has undergone a number of changes to its algorithm and its news feed placement policies. In addition, the platform expanded Facebook ads tools and options (paid advertising) and began capitalizing on the advertising actions on its platform, limiting the space and organic reach of companies.
Thus, generating organic traffic to brands on the platform is becoming increasingly difficult. Today the reach reaches only 6% of the audience, representing a drop of 49% ( Ogilvy data ).
According to Facebook the measures are inevitable and aim to avoid overcrowding of users’ feed. The number of profiles continues to grow and brand participation competing for space on users’ pages is increasingly effective and comprehensive.
The supply of information is immense.
To get an idea there are over 18 million companies with profiles on the platform and there are on average 1500 shared stories (posts) that could be viewed by a user (according to their interests) at any given time. Facebook shows about 300 per user and it is for one of these “sun spots” in your audience feed that you should fight.
So for Facebook, the algorithm needed to evolve into this scenario. The company has a great job of defining what should be shown to users. And, it is the algorithm that determines the content that will be viewed by each user, as well as the information they may like and engage with.
However, as with Google, nobody knows exactly how Facebook’s algorithm determines what’s relevant to its users. But even with the changes, there are still some known elements that are part of the process and can help you increase your traffic.
Let’s talk about the following factors:
How does Facebook determine what appears in user feeds?
Known factors that the Facebook algorithm considers when determining what each user will see on their profile include:
1 – What type of post the user interacts the most
For example text versus photo, photo versus video, and so on.
2 – Unwanted Content
Spam and content that the user hides in his feed (“hide” option).
3 – How the user interacts with Facebook ads (the disclosures and paid links).
4 – Which device the user is browsing and how fast is his connection.
In addition, Facebook’s original ranking system, “the three pillars of EdgeRank ” still remains as part of the current algorithm that determines feed view:
Affinity
This pillar is indicative of the relationship with the user. How much does the user interact with your page?
Weight
This pillar refers to the type of shared content. Facebook prioritizes visual content: videos and photos.
Decline (decay)
This pillar refers to the time of your posting. The older a post, the less likely it will appear in the news feed.
It is also very clear that elements of user behaviour greatly affect the visibility of a post.
For example, a user will more often see posts from the friend or brand network that he or she has interacted with or interacted with earlier (the more recent interaction with a friend “X” is more likely to see their content).
Previous user interactions with a particular type of post (photo, image, theme, or other) is another factor. If this user demonstrates greater affinity and engagement with a given post format, they are more likely to see content with the same characteristics in your feed.
Also, a user’s reactions to the content viewed are factors that are part of the selection process of what a person will see later in their profile. For example, when a user has positive reactions, such as “liking” a post, they are more likely to receive similar content. But if feedback to a post is negative, the chances of that post appearing in that profile feed are less likely.
Increased Organic Facebook Traffic by 10 Tips
Despite the new challenges there are many ways to overcome Facebook’s changes. You can use the above elements to your advantage and work out some ways to continue building and increasing your audience. Here are 10 tips on how to do this:
1. Post quality content
You may have heard this tip several times. And as obvious as it sounds, the amount of unimportant content that is still produced and played on the net makes us think it’s always good to remember: produce qualified content!
Relevant content remains the best way to generate value on Facebook, even with changes in the platform algorithm.
Pages that publish qualified information: that add value to people’s lives, teach, entertain, or drive users to some reflection are still able to reach people in the news feed.
2. But post just right!
The frequency of posts on a brand profile should not be too high. After all, you could end up overwhelming your audience with information and polluting users’ feed.
This kind of behaviour often annoys people on social networks and worse – probably – you’ll attract the dreaded haters.
3. And at the right time: Post off-peak hours
The logic is very simple: outside peak hours you will have less competition. Post flow will be smaller and your content will be more likely to stand out.
It’s also worth evaluating at what times your target audience usually accesses your posts. It may be interesting to test and set up a publication schedule based on your audience’s browsing routine.
4. Make Facebook Insights Your Best Friend
Facebook Insights is the best tool for tracking and evaluating your efforts, checking what is working, what posts your audience likes best, and thus directing – and redirecting – your actions on the social network.
The tool is also a valuable source of data about your audience.
5. Target your content using Facebook organic post targeting
On Facebook you can define specific information and better deliver your content to a targeted and targeted audience. You can tailor who sees your posts according to personas (avatars representing ideal consumers) defined for your business.
In profile settings you must enable the targeting option and set the targeting parameters. The basis is made by demographics (gender, age, education, location, language…), but there are some other options.
6. Links: Make your profile a path to other content!
Include links to your website or to pages with post-complementary content. When users are fed with information that helps them solve their consumer issues, they interact more with the brand. This will allow your posts to gain more feed from these potential customers and drive conversions.
Also, the Facebook audience loves links. Content with links only loses to videos in the preference of users.
7. Bet on content with great visual appeal. Above all, bet on videos.
As already mentioned, photos and videos are formats that take advantage of the platform. Facebook prioritizes these formats because they are content with high affinity and engagement rates.
Videos have the best results on Facebook.
In addition, the company is increasingly investing in technologies to improve video viewing on the platform. Proof of this is the “autoplay” tool that seeks to attract people’s attention and releases 3 seconds of the video while the user walks the timeline in your news feed.
8. Share teaching and intuitive material
Infographics and pictographs are formats that have fallen in people’s taste. They are among the types of content that earn the most “likes” and shares on various social networks, including Facebook.
These are self-explanatory content that can be used to disseminate valuable information with a very attractive design.
9. Ask questions in your posts
In the list of “top 10 posts” 2014, released by Facebook, 20% were content that questioned users.
Asking questions to your audience is a tactic that generates high user participation and shows value and interest in public opinion. The potential consumer likes to be heard and talk about their expectations and make suggestions.
10. Focus on community building
I know you might be thinking that communities were tools of an already extinct social network: Orkut. However, some community building rules also apply to Facebook.
Many companies create profiles, but miss the opportunity to interact more deeply with their audience. Spending time creating activities (contests, polls …), giving feedback to comments and – really – listening to your followers will give them better brand awareness and greater engagement. Over time you will have loyal people to your page that can become natural promoters of the company.
Saw? You are now ready to improve your Facebook results.
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