By Nikita Geldenhuys

Is there still value for publishers and businesses in doing unpaid posts on Facebook? The experts we asked mostly answered “yes”, but only if you find new ways of capturing the hearts of your audience.

The death of organic reach was inevitable

According to Facebook, organic reach is “the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution”. Paid reach is the number of people who saw a post because a brand or business paid to publish it.

Reach on Facebook is an important metric to track because, as SproutSocial points out, it is a measurement of a brand or publisher’s effective audience. In contrast, organic reach is how content creators reach their audience.

Lisa Steingold, marketing manager for the EMEA region at Popimedia, says it's natural for organic reach to decline on social platforms and digital channels. “As platforms have more visitors and traffic, organic reach would decline. Google initially provided free traffic and leads, but as services and traffic grew, more competition rose to rank highly in search results.”

“[Paid reach] does give the platforms access to revenue – but, ultimately, this makes platforms such as Facebook sustainable.”

Facebook’s stricter algorithm is actually a good thing

There are benefits to Facebook’s latest algorithm change. Nick Paul, founder of Funda Social, believes the new landscape brings more value to paid reach. “Paid reach is more valuable than ever as it’s highly targeted, which contrasts with organic reach where the brand has very little control over exactly who sees their messaging.”

“The News Feed was becoming really cluttered with brand messages, but even worse it was getting cluttered with content which was trying to ‘game’ the organic reach algorithm. It was for this reason that, at one point, your News Feed was packed with ‘Happy Friday’ posts featuring kittens or puppies.”

In his opinion, the rise of paid reach is also doing wonders for the overall experience of users on Facebook. It forces brands to put more effort into their paid media – to create more focused, useful content. 

Steingold points out engagement on social media is also finally more significant. “The truth is that organic reach is essentially dead. But it's not a bad thing for brands, as it forces brands to understand their audiences better and engage more relevantly; [which is] ultimately better for both brands and audiences.”

How to embrace a world where organic reach is hard to get

Stricter algorithms on social media platforms mean brands can only achieve organic reach if they have something meaningful to say. This is according to Emma Odendaal, head of digital content at John Brown Media South Africa, who adds, “It’s become more important than ever for brands to get to know their audiences and produce content that speaks to their needs, whether paid or organic.”

The right content for the right audience relies heavily on an effective strategy. Jessica Rose McEndoo, head of the content strategy and social media department at BlueMagnet, wrote about the organic reach debate last year, “A true Facebook company who embraces social has a clearly defined content plan and social marketing strategy in place, with measurable KPIs. Their Facebook company page is an extension of their business and digital assets and is purely there to meet their primary business objective.”

The organic reach dilemma also means shares are important. Dylan Kohlstädt, CEO of Shift ONE, a creative integrated marketing agency, points out brands and publishers need to produce content that audiences can connect with and will want to share.

“Content needs to strike an emotional cord, be humorous, or save time or money, but it cannot be a hard sell. Posts that get a lot of engagement are shown to more and more people, so make sure your content hits the right spot.”

The verdict

Here’s the bad news: “Treat [organic reach] as a bonus when you do get it, don't count on it,” Paul explains.

That said, organic reach still has value, Odendaal notes, “While paid reach may give a surge of engagement, it is almost always short lived. Valuable, customer-centric content is needed as part of an always-on strategy to sustain engagement.”

Organic and paid reach are interlinked. Paul’s clients, for instance, often achieve around 50% organic reach once they start to promote posts with advertising. As soon as people start engaging with and sharing paid content, organic reach starts rolling in, he says.

“It’s not all bad news,” Kohlstädt concludes. “If you would like your content to reach more people, then [paid reach] is a highly effective and highly targeted tool that can reach people with very specific criteria – and grow your brand awareness and, hopefully, sales.”

Read how two South African digital publishers plan to tackle the Facebook organic reach challenge in our article "Will publishing survive the age of Facebook?"