At this point you’ve probably noticed that your Facebook posts get shown to very few of your fans. In fact, the average organic reach of a Facebook page’s post is down to 2.6%! There are two main drivers behind this drop in organic reach; 1) There are increasingly more users and businesses on Facebook; and 2) The number of businesses running ads has grown tremendously, leaving Facebook less room for posts from your page.
With this dramatic drop in organic reach, most people have just conceded that Facebook has become a “pay-to-play” platform. But the reality is that it’s just has less room for mediocre content.
The best way to start creating better content is by using the “EIE” formula. If your content doesn’t Educate, Inspire or Entertain your Facebook fans, then it’s probably not worth posting.
Here are some of the best ways to create posts using the EIE formula:
The VP of Facebook was quoted saying that 90% of all content will be video by 2020, so now’s the time to start using more of it. Two great ways to incorporate videos into your Facebook page are using native videos and Facebook Live. Native videos are videos that you directly upload to Facebook and will get you more reach and visibility which increases the likelihood of you getting more engagement. Refrain from sharing videos straight from YouTube because this is guaranteed to lower reach since YouTube is owned by Google and is Facebook’s biggest competition when it comes to online advertising.
If you want to learn more about using Facebook Live read this. Facebook Live videos are getting the highest organic reach now but who knows how long this will last, so jump on this now because most fitness professionals are not.
Animated text overlays are a great way to capture people’s attention and get them to stop their scroll. Animoto is an amazing paid service that allows you to create this type of videos but there are also some great apps that allow you to do this too. Adobe Spark is a great free app that allows you to make some appealing videos, while Ripl and Legend are paid apps worth downloading.
There is one other app called Clips (currently for iPhone only) that adds captions as you speak. Since almost 80% of people watch their videos on silent, this app could really improve engagement on your videos.
One post type that is drastically underused is “Fill-in-the-blank” or question posts. These typically get a lot of comments because people can’t help themselves from engaging. You can use them to help educate or entertain your fans.
For example if you wanted to educate, you could ask “One gram of protein has how many calories…4 or 7? And if you wanted to entertain, you could ask, “My favorite exercise is ____”
There are numerous types of these posts that you could come up with if you just sat down for 30 minutes and wrote out a list.
The last type of post that will help increase engagement and create more advocates are client spotlights. Whether you are using a before and after testimonial or pictures, congratulating a client on achieving a goal, or just sharing a video of your clients working hard during a session, this is something fitness professionals should do every week. Not only will your clients feel special, but you’ll show all their friends (as well as your followers) that your business is different and you actually care about your clients.
Even though the organic reach on Facebook has decreased, it doesn’t mean you can’t reach your fans. Start implementing some of these strategies and watch your engagement and reach increase in no time.
