STUDY: Facebook Pages’ Organic Reach Is Not Quite Dead

The conventional wisdom about Facebook pages is that organic reach is virtually nonexistent and posts with photos perform the best, but a study by social analytics and reporting firm Locowise poked holes in those theories.

Locowise analyzed 500 pages throughout February, totaling more than 215 million likes and accounting for some 27,000 posts, and it found that:

• The pages’ average organic reach was approximately 7 percent of total likes, with that figure rising to 11 percent for pages with fewer than 10,000 likes. Those with 10,000 to 99,999 likes saw 6 percent reach, while those with more than 100,000 were at 5 percent.
• Links drew the most organic reach, at 18 percent, followed by videos (9 percent), text-only status updates (9 percent) and photos (just 7 percent).
• For pages with fewer than 10,000 likes, links garnered an even larger percentage of organic reach, 32 percent, followed by photos (11 percent), text-only status updates (10 percent) and videos (4 percent).
• In the 10,000-to-99,999 group, links were tops with 16 percent of organic reach, followed by videos (11 percent), text-only status updates (10 percent) and photos (5 percent).
• Pages with more than 100,000 likes posted similar results, with links accounting for 15 percent of organic reach, followed by videos (11 percent), text-only status updates (7 percent) and photos (5 percent).

Locowise said of its findings in an email to SocialTimes:

This data says you should stop posting photos directly but include stunning imagery in the thumbnail images of your link posts instead. Posting more links has the added benefit of you being able to gain more clicks to your website or blog. This makes it easier for you to track any organic ROI (return on investment) from Facebook, too.

It’s also important to note videos — which only a few months ago didn’t get much reach — have received an algorithmic bump since Facebook started focusing on video. Creating video content is now worth your consideration. If you already have videos, it is worth uploading videos from your YouTube channel directly onto Facebook, too.

The company also offered five points of action for page administrators:

Publish link posts if you want to reach more people organically.

Use stunning photos you would have posted directly as custom link thumbnails instead in order to gain more clicks and engagement.

If you run a larger Facebook page, start experimenting with videos uploaded directly to Facebook.

Start uploading your YouTube videos directly onto Facebook, too.

Remember that just posting a link post or video is not everything: Always try to be creative and engaging with any piece of content you post in order to boost your results.

Readers: What did you think of the findings by Locowise?