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How to reach your Facebook fans for free

Cracked FB logoSo you’ve built up a good fan base – maybe you’ve even spent money promoting your page, offering a giveaway (read my blog here on how to grow fans through cheap prizes >>>) and now you want to interact with your newfound friends.

In the travel industry we offer all sorts of great advice on travel, hot tips, special deals and promotions – but Facebook, in their endearing wisdom, have decided that only 5% of our fans, the same ones that have ‘Liked’ our page because they want to see what we offer, will in fact have the opportunity.

I have succumbed, like most of us who run online businesses, to paying to ‘boost’ some of my posts or run ads in the sidelines for specific events, but this week I had a ripper of a breakthrough with organic reach, so I want to share it with you!

What is organic reach?

I’m glad you asked. Organic reach is the amount of people who saw your Facebook status for free. As I said above, the latest algorithm (and they change it constantly) is that about 5% will see it. BUT, if those 5% interact with your status, then at least 5% of their own friends will also see it – and so it goes on.

So what’s the trick?

Another good question! The trick is 1) to post a status that already has the highest reach – in other words, not a link and not a pic with text written separately, but a straight pic or straight text.  And 2) your image or your text needs to encourage interaction.

It should fall into one of these categories: aspirational, inspirational, controversial, cute or funny. Pose a question to make people ‘Like’, comment or share.

Here’s what happened this week

I am working with New Caledonia Tourism NZ and we’ve just run a competition to win a trip for 2, which we paid to promote on Facebook. Our fans now number around 6,300. This week I grabbed a gorgeous image of 2 empty sun chairs sitting on the edge of a secluded beach in New Caledonia and wrote “What’s Missing?”. Thanks to the nearly 100 people who commented and the 80+ who “liked” it, the post reached nearly 50% of our fan size. Most people answered with “Me!” and some tagged their loved ones (gaining further reach). In all, over 3,100 people saw this image without us paying a cent.

Here’s what it looked like. My next task of course, is to repeat this feat on a regular basis…

How to maximise organic Facebook reach

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Hi, I'm Megan Singleton and I'm the word slinger of this travel blog as well as on radio in NZ every Sunday. Former Travel Editor at Yahoo NZ and current freelance writer for a few newspapers and mags from time to time, I set off on this travel writing journey 20 years ago and I've pretty much always got a suitcase half packed (or half un-packed!) I'd love you to join me on Facebook or Twitter and sign up for my newsletters if you want loads of travel tips, advice and deals!