By Mindy Rayer

Over the years, Facebook has altered and re-altered their syndication algorithms in an effort to manage the growing amount of content from its nearly 1 billion users, which has inadvertently hurt Facebook reach. These changes have chipped away at what marketers call “organic reach,” or the ability for non-paid, business page updates to touch people who have already opted into their page content by becoming a fan. As of January 2014, these reach numbers were sitting at about 12% of community subscribers who were actually seeing business page posts.

Business Pages on Facebook are in Jeopardy

As of January 2015, that number has continued to dip as Facebook continues to regulate business content within newsfeeds based on type, call to action, and the intent of the posts. So now what? How do you fight back?

If you’re a franchise owner spending time and money building a community only to find that many of your fans are no longer seeing your posts, what do you do? Here are a few tips to reach out to your community and keep them coming back for more of your fabulous content and keep them loving (liking) you!

How to Increase Facebook Reach & Regain Lost Glory

• Create Unique & Valuable Content

The biggest key to having fans come back for more is giving them a great reason to come to your page. What exclusive content, deals, news and information can you provide them that someone else isn’t giving them in a convenient way? If you’re a workout center, how about some special health tips from your trainers? If you sell cosmetics, show them how popular stars are now setting new makeup tends and how they can achieve the look too. Whatever your industry, there is a reason your community is following you.

The key is: Viewers remember valuable content!

• Post Images From Your Store/Website

Regardless of organic reach, nothing can keep people away from great content about them. Make it a practice to take real time photos and create albums on your page. Your community will love coming back to see themselves. Encourage them to “tag” themselves in the photos – in this way, their Facebook friends see them interacting with your page in their newsfeed. Often times, when people see a photo of themselves or someone they know, they will want to “like” and interact with that image. This engagement will push your content beyond your community and build brand awareness.

• Remember Customer Service

Remember that your Facebook page continues to be a valuable extension of your online presence. Current customers and prospective clients are still coming to Facebook to see what companies have to say, and to take a deeper peek into their culture and values. When customers come to learn about you, it pays not to be M.I.A. Many companies have been able to use Facebook and other social channels as a strong tool for facilitating excellent customer service.

To become a communication channel for your community it’s important to continue being active on your page by posting news, fun content and if you have them, special deals for those who come to your page. Interacting with fans who have commented or liked your posts shows that you are an engaged business who seeks to build relationships with their clientele.

• Boost Posts

If’ you haven’t done so already, now is the time to begin advertising on Facebook.Using the “boost post” feature directly on your page is the easiest way to begin dabbling in the powerful tool of Facebook advertising. After setting up your post, just click the blue buttonbelow the post that says “boost post.” Choose your audience, location, age and any related interests that you want to target, then designate a modest spend (I suggest $25-$50 to start out) and voila!

Now your message is “super charged” and “pushed” into the newsfeed of your community and even to those beyond. The post will run until enough people click on it to expire your ad spend, or for the set amount of time you’ve designated within the boosting options.

When your money runs out or when the time expires, Facebook will give you a report to show your results. This includes your reach, comments, likes and demographic details on who engaged with the post.

For getting information out about a promotional event or sale, boosting a post is an easy to use and convenient tool for beginning advertisers on LinkedIn. For special events you may also consider increasing your spend and creating a few different types of posts that specifically speak to audience divers audience segments you want to reach. Bottom-line, boosting a post will increase your post’s reach, overall brand awareness and likely bring in a few new fans.

One item that should be mentioned when using this tool: Facebook has strict limitations on the amount of text appearing on the post image. Use this tool to be sure your image has less than 20% text, otherwise your request to boost that post will be denied.

• Use Facebook Ad Tools

Facebook’s advertising tool takes a little more time and planning, but the results are well worth your while. Using the advertising feature tends to be more cost effective and offers a variety of options to reach your community and those who might not be a fan of your page (yet).

One option within this tool is to “promote your page.” With this option, you can display your page’s cover photo and some brief text telling people about your business. This ad can be designated to show up within desktop newsfeeds or in mobile feeds. Promoting your page ads can be targeted by location, interest, age and gender and are effective for growing your community.

If you prefer to run more targeted ad campaigns, Facebook offers a variety of tools to achieve a variety of goals. Here’s a screenshot of the different type of ads you can run using Facebook ads.

Now that you’re armed with a few ideas, it’s time to get started! Go for it, boost a post, run ads, share some photos then let me know how it goes or post your questions below. With social media marketing, you’re in it for the long-haul. It does take time to see results, but they are well worth it. If you want to expand your social reach, but don’t have the time for it, Vende Digital can help out. Start by getting a free No-BS website analysis!