Let’s face it, posting on Facebook often feels like fishing in the dark. You cast that rod out there into the darkness, not knowing where it will land, if there are even any fish in that area, and grateful when you get the slightest nibble.

But as frustrating as it is, Facebook is the biggest “pond” out there for reaching customers.

And, although it’s hard to stay on top of all of Facebook’s latest updates, I’ve rounded up a bunch of the latest ones for you. The more you know about what Facebook is doing, the more we can shine light on the lake and make more concerted efforts to get our posts out to the right people.

Link Posts (with Preview intact)

This is one I can testify to of late. Facebook announced about two months ago that they would tweak the algorithm to favor link posts that leave the link preview intact. This is when you post the link, and leave the Facebook formatted preview in the post.

Previously, because photos did so well, people would post a photo and include the link in the post information. But the photo was the bulk of the post, not the link preview.

Well, now Facebook is planning to reward those who leave the link previews in their Facebook updates. And it seems to be working! I posted three link posts last week: 1 = reach of 480 people; 2 = reach of 1084; 3 = reach of 367. These were all other people’s content that I posted directly to my page. Other link posts in the same week were all well over a reach of 100.

My blog posts (which include the link preview) and post automatically from my blog haven’t fared so well. In the same week my two blog posts received reach of 72 and 39. So I wonder if Facebook is “penalizing” posts that come from outside schedulers (this has been reported before) even if they include the link preview.

If you want to increase  your reach, and make your posting a lot easier, try posting your link posts with the preview included. Don’t replace the preview with a photo or delete it and leave it as text update.

In my opinion, you should be doing this anyways. First of all, it’s easier. But, now with the Save feature (see next section), having a link preview versus a photo is going to make a significant impact on your long term reach and traffic referrals.

Save Feature

I’ve written previously about Facebook’s Save feature. You can read that post for more information on how to use the feature. But, most importantly, you can’t “save” photos. But you can save links.

In fact, I’ve been using this feature like crazy to curate quality content. Now that I can save posts to read later, at my convenience, Facebook has become a much more reliable source of information and articles for me. And by saving the posts, I am essentially “clicking” on that page’s post. And post clicks are both a measurable metric on Facebook and a parameter in the Facebook algorithm determining the reach and relevance of your posts.

Make sure that you’re posting relevant articles for your audience. Even if they don’t “like” the post at the time, if they are saving the article to read later, it will benefit your reach and metrics.

And don’t be afraid to encourage fans to “save” the post. Give a simple CTA in the post to click on the arrow in the top right corner to save the post for later. Encouraging the behavior and making it a habit for your audience will help develop good “saving” behaviors!

Link Bait Headlines

Thank the lord for this update! Facebook recently announced that it would start penalizing posts that use link-bait titles. This is wonderful in my opinion!

If you’re not aware, link-bait titles are those that “bait” you into clicking. For example: “10 Ways to Make More Money. #4 Will Change Your Life!” or “What This Guy Did Will Amaze You!”

And I have to admit that I have been seeing less of these posts of late. Of course, they’re still out there and when a number of your friends like or share a post, it’ll still show up in your feed. But at least it’s not as many of them!

If you’re someone who uses post updates or titles like this, you may want to rethink your strategy. Yes, these titles work – a lot. But they also backfire a lot. I am someone who typically won’t open posts like this. They look spammy and the number they say is “life changing” or “the best” or a “must do” often aren’t. It’s just annoying. So just stop doing it.

Videos

Ok, this isn’t really an “update” from Facebook. But a recent study and analysis from beet.tv showed that Facebook videos have surpassed YouTube in video views. Of course, Facebook has auto-play videos which increases views and there are likely other factors involved. And it’s a shy marginal win for one month. Next month, it could revert back to YouTube having more views. I wouldn’t recommend you dump your YouTube channel or anything crazy. But it does encourage us to consider implementing more videos in our Facebook strategies.

And, earlier this year, Facebook did announce new video metrics for advertisers. Even though this is only currently for “advertisers” meaning it’s not affecting normal posts or measuring your organic reach, it shows a shift in Facebook’s attention to videos. And if they’re making this shift, it’s for good reason. It’s because video does well with audiences!

Find ways to incorporate more videos into your page posts and see how it increases your reach and engagement. Make the videos relevant to your audience though.

Facebook Scheduling Tool

The Facebook scheduling tool is a really easy way to organize your time on Facebook. If you aren’t yet using this tool, read this post I wrote last year about how and why you can use this tool.

Facebook just recently announced an update to the scheduling tool which includes a “Save Draft” option which a lot of people have been raving about. Since I don’t have this new feature on my page yet, this photo from Heidi Garland at Guild West Agency shows what it looks like.

Using the scheduling tool within Facebook, rather than an outside tool (like Buffer or Hootsuite) tends to produce higher post reach. Take advantage of this tool update to schedule posts or backdate posts. You can use the “Save Draft” feature to start a post, save it, verify the information or find additional content, and then come back and finish the post. You can access your saved drafts from the Activity tab as a page admin. The Drafts option will be on the left side menu.

Reply to Comments on Mobile

This was an update from a few months ago to the mobile app Page Manager. While we’ve had the ability to respond directly to a fan’s comment on the desktop site, we couldn’t respond directly through the mobile app. Our responses became comments just like everyone else’s.

But, now you can respond directly to the original comment and keep the comment chain going on that individual comment. Just hit “reply” under the comment and your response will go directly to that comment.

This won’t affect your post reach directly, but it will keep it cleaner and that’s always a good thing. Also, if you’re responding directly to your fans, and encouraging the conversation to continue, the added interaction may help boost the “relevancy” or “popularity” of the post, increasing its position in the Facebook algorithm.

Comment and Like as Person or Profile

Previously, when you wanted to like or comment on your own page post, but as your personal profile, you had to go up to the top of the page, and select “Commenting as (name)”. It made it tedious, and you had to go back to your page each time you wanted to comment or like something.

Facebook has simplified this greatly recently. From both your page or your profile, you can choose how you want to like or comment on your page posts. On the bottom right side of the post, you’ll see a small profile photo from your business page. This indicates you’re liking/commenting as your page. But if you click on that profile photo, you can choose to like or comment as yourself (personal profile) or other page you manage.

Why does this matter? Well, liking your own post as your page looks a little arrogant. Although there are many who encourage this practice, I do not. However, liking your page posts as yourself, now that has real benefits.

Have you noticed that when your friends “like” a page post, that action shows up in your news feed? Facebook wants to encourage you to see, like, and engage with the content your friends are liking. So, if you “like” your page post as yourself, a number of your friends will see that you liked that page post – thereby giving that post more reach. And reach to an audience that doesn’t already like the page. And if any of your friends then like or comment on that post, it’ll show up in their friends’ feeds. And there you have an intricate web of extended reach on your page posts.

Extra Updates

Some other recent updates to Facebook include personal profile updates that won’t affect business pages (at least not yet). One of these updates is the ability to rearrange, or select the order in which photos will appear when uploading multiple images. You can read more about this from Facebook here.

Another new feature, which I haven’t yet tried out, is Facebook Rooms. This is meant to be an app that allows you to create a place for something you’re into and invite others to join you there. It’s very reminiscent of early-day chat rooms. I can think of a lot of applications for this from a business perspective, but that would be a whole other blog post 

While I’ve given you a lot of information in this post and discussed how these updates will affect your reach, I want to be clear that these tips are not intended for you to “game” Facebook. The constant updates from Facebook are designed to reduce gaming and these tips above are what I believe are good business practices, but with the added benefit of helping you reach more of your targeted audience on Facebook.

While not trying to sound like a broken record, when you produce relevant, quality content to your audience, you will get more reach and better results. I know organic Facebook reach sucks and it’s frustrating. But remember that if the fans you are reaching are engaging with your content (clicking, saving, liking, commenting, etc.), then they will continue to see more of your content and your content will get shown to more people. It’s a vicious circle but giving the right things to the right people will always be the best strategy.