If you manage a Facebook Business Page, you‘ve likely noticed a dramatic drop in the organic reach of your posts over the past decade. The percentage of your fans that actually see the content you publish on your Page without promoting it has plummeted to depressingly low levels.
What is Facebook Organic Reach?
First, let‘s define what "organic reach" actually means. According to Facebook, organic reach is "how many people you can reach for free by posting to your Page." In the early days of Facebook Pages, brands could expect a significant percentage of their fans to routinely see their content pop up in their News Feeds. But those glory days are long gone.
Facebook‘s organic reach has been on a painful decline since 2012 as the volume of content published on the platform has exploded. With an avalanche of posts competing for limited News Feed space, it has become increasingly difficult for brands to get their content seen without opening their wallets to pay for promotion.
Just How Far Has Organic Reach Fallen?
To put the decline of organic reach into perspective, let‘s look at some telling statistics:
| Year | Average Organic Reach per Fan |
|---|---|
| 2012 | 16% |
| 2014 | 6.5% |
| 2016 | 2-6% |
| 2018 | 1.2% |
| 2020 | 5.2% |
| 2022 | 1-2%* |
*Estimate based on industry reports and surveys. Actual reach varies by page size and engagement.
As you can see, organic reach has dropped like a rock over the past decade. According to a study by social media analytics company Ignite, the average organic reach for a Facebook Page had fallen to a measly 5.2% by late 2020. That means if you had 1000 fans, only about 52 of them would see your non-promoted posts on average. For mega brands and publishers with millions of fans, that percentage is often even lower, hovering around 1-2%.
Skai, a marketing intelligence platform, published a study in 2022 that looked at over 2,500 Facebook Pages and nearly 250,000 unique posts. They found that average organic reach had dropped to an abysmal 1.95%. Larger Pages over 100k fans fared even worse at just 0.7% average reach.
Why Has Organic Reach Cratered?
So what‘s behind this frustrating freefall in organic reach? There are several key factors at play:
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Mushrooming amount of content: As of 2023, Facebook has over 200 million businesses actively using its platform. The sheer volume of content being published on Facebook has skyrocketed. More content and limited space equals a bloodbath for reach.
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Algorithm shifts to favor friends/family: In January 2018, Facebook made a monumental change to its News Feed algorithm. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platform would now prioritize "meaningful social interactions" and show more posts from friends and family over brands and publishers. Organic reach for Pages dropped by 35% on average in the wake of this change.
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The rise of paid promotion: Make no mistake, Facebook is an advertising company first and foremost. Nearly 99% of Facebook‘s revenue comes from advertising. The company has a vested interest in making organic reach more difficult in order to compel brands to pay to promote their posts. As Facebook‘s CFO said on an earnings call, "We expect organic distribution of an individual page‘s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the platform."
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Cracking down on clickbait and spam: In an effort to improve the quality of the News Feed and prevent users from being bombarded with low-value content, Facebook has gotten much more aggressive about cracking down on clickbait headlines, like-baiting, and spammy tactics that try to game the algorithm. For brands, this means that mediocre "business as usual" content is likely to fade into oblivion.
Real-World Impact of the Decline
The decline of organic Facebook reach has upended the marketing strategies and budgets of countless businesses. Few industries have been hit harder than digital publishers, who had come to rely heavily on Facebook as a major source of referral traffic.
Take LittleThings, a female-focused media startup that shut down in 2018. The company was getting 75% of its referral traffic from Facebook at its peak. But after Facebook‘s algorithm change decimated its organic reach, the company‘s profit evaporated and investors pulled out.
"It was like a nuclear bomb went off in all of digital media," said Gretchen Tibbits, chief operating officer of LittleThings. "There was no transition. No period where we could have changed our whole approach. It was like, ‘Tank‘s empty, sorry.‘"
Even major brands with deep pockets have felt the pain. Procter & Gamble cut its digital ad spend by $200 million in 2017, citing brand safety concerns and "ineffective" ads. P&G‘s finance chief said, "In the digital space, with things like Facebook, we find that the return on investment over the long term is not there."
The lessons are clear: Putting all your eggs in the Facebook basket is a risky bet. Brands must diversify their audience acquisition channels and get smarter about how they invest in Facebook.
How to Succeed on Facebook in 2024 and Beyond
So how can brands navigate this harsh new reality where organic reach has all but disappeared? What does it take to make Facebook an effective marketing channel when pay-to-play is the law of the land? Here are some key strategies to focus on:
1. Embrace Facebook as a Paid Channel
The days of organically reaching the majority of your fans for free are over. It‘s time to fully embrace Facebook as a paid media channel. Allocate more of your budget towards promoting your best content and running conversion-focused ad campaigns. With sophisticated ad targeting options like Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences, you can reach the exact right people with the right message at the right time.
2. Focus on Quality over Quantity
With organic reach in the low single digits, the spray-and-pray approach of publishing high volumes of mediocre posts is a losing strategy. To gain any meaningful organic visibility, your content needs to be exceptional. Take a "less is more" approach and focus on crafting fewer but higher-quality posts that are likely to spark engagement. Use analytics to see which content formats and topics resonate most with your unique audience.
3. Invest Heavily in Video and Facebook Live
Video, particularly Facebook Live, is one of the most engaging content types on the platform. Users spend 3x more time watching live broadcasts compared to pre-recorded videos. And Facebook‘s algorithm heavily favors showing live videos to more people. Where possible, make video a central part of your content mix.
Some ideas for using video:
- Host live Q&A sessions or interviews with thought leaders
- Share behind-the-scenes content and event footage
- Create how-to videos and product demos
- Broadcast big company announcements and product launches
4. Activate Your Advocates
While you may not be able to reach all your fans organically, you likely have a core group of loyal brand advocates. Find ways to activate these superfans to help amplify your message. Encourage employees, partners, and passionate customers to engage with your content and share it to their own networks. Create a Facebook Group for your most ardent supporters and provide them with exclusive content, offers, and access. Engaged superfans can extend your reach far beyond what you can achieve on your own.
5. Prioritize On-Site Audience Building
Rather than over-relying on rented land like your Facebook Page, focus more on building an owned audience that you have more control over. Make on-site audience acquisition a top priority. Gate your best content behind registration forms to collect emails. Use retargeting ads to bring Facebook users back to your site and into your ecosystem. Activate your most passionate Facebook followers and bring them to your site where you have more control over the relationship.
The Future of Facebook Marketing
Looking ahead, we can expect Facebook‘s organic reach to remain severely constrained. The glory days of free brand exposure to massive audiences are firmly in the rearview mirror. But that doesn‘t mean Facebook is no longer a powerful marketing tool – it simply requires a different strategic approach.
Going forward, successful brands will treat Facebook primarily as an advertising platform and use highly-targeted paid promotion to reach their ideal audiences. They‘ll focus on quality over quantity, creating thumb-stopping content built for meaningful engagement. And they‘ll find creative ways to activate their biggest fans while spending more effort on owned channels.
The brands that will win on Facebook in 2024 and beyond will be the ones that recognize its true strengths and play by its ever-evolving rules. They‘ll stay nimble, continuously experiment with new features and formats, and prioritize meaningful audience relationships over vanity metrics. While the days of easy organic reach on Facebook may be behind us, the platform still holds immense opportunity for brands that are willing to adapt and invest in the right ways.
