If you have a Facebook Business page, you’re well aware that reach has been dropping like a rock recently.
You’re probably wondering how to get traffic from Facebook, if it’s even possible, or if you should just throw in the towel.
It’s no secret that Facebook keeps purposefully changing its algorithm to make business page posts fewer and farther between in the newsfeed.
Now, before you start complaining that it’s only to get more money out of businesses (which is partly true), also consider that the entire point of Facebook is to interact with friends and family.
Think about how annoying TV commercials are – you’re in the middle of watching a serious nail-biter and every 5 minutes you get bombarded by dishwasher commercials.
That’s nothing compared to what’s been happening on Facebook.
People sign in to see what their friends are up to, but find their newsfeed totally overwhelmed by brands screaming at them:
“HUGE Sale! Click here” and “Massive discount today! Tag a friend!” and “YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS! BEST SALE EVER OMG WOW! 🎉💥💫🙊🐽🐹🌚”
I’m exhausted just thinking about it and I know you are too.
This collective exhaustion of information overload, plus the recent research that shows Facebook use can negatively impact mental health, means Facebook absolutely has to change its model or risk losing all of its users.
So, what we’re left with is a better user experience on the consumer end, and a more expensive ad platform on the marketer’s end.
Before you give up and delete your Facebook page entirely, there is one ‘trick’ to making the most of your reach, but it’s more of a no-brainer than a growth hack:
Publish What Users Want
Let’s be honest. As marketers or business owners, we’re often so caught up in what we want to say that we totally miss what users really want.
So, how can we possibly know what they want?
Lucky for us, Neil Patel just did an in-depth analysis of over 5 billion articles to find out what users prefer on Facebook in 2018.
Here are the key takeaways from the research on how to get Facebook traffic in 2018:
1 – While list posts and infographics generate the most quick social shares, ‘How To’ articles produce more consistent Facebook traffic over time.
2 – Users prefer headlines with 7-9 words.
3 – Users LOVE images, 7 or more images per article to be exact.
4 – Lists with over 100 items do best.
5 – Users share content with 5k-10k words most.
6 – News topics get quick hits of traffic from Facebook, but evergreen content wins in the long run.
7 – Users hate fear tactics! ‼️ They love content with laughter, awe and joy.
8 – People prefer sharing content on Tuesdays. (Monday and Wednesdays also work.)
9 – People tend to share content around lunchtime (11am-1pm). (Then a small spike again around 6pm.)
I don’t consider these tips gimmicky or inauthentic since they help us to understand what real people are most interested in on a whole.
I’m all for brands creating meaningful content that solve genuine problems so we can turn down the collective online “noise”!
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If you want to learn Facebook ads in-depth with a pro, I fully recommend Claire Pell’s Facebook Ads course.
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Originally published on Gumear.co
