With over two billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the best social media platforms for your business. Unfortunately, it comes with a huge downside: complications in finding out how to reach your target audience and lead them back to your website.

It’s much more difficult than ever before, considering the declining organic reach on Facebook. Do you want to see your hard work pay off in 2018? Then maybe it’s time to explore and adopt new techniques.

In this article, I’ll share with you a collection of ideas on how to get greater organic reach and beat the Facebook algorithm.

Interact with Community Members

One effective way to convince more users to support your business is by offering true testimonials. You do this by having your customers participate in a live or video interview. Storytelling is an important part of boosting organic reach because you connect with your followers on a deeper level.

Use the power of word of mouth. Search for customers or community members who love your products. If they have a story to tell, they may be willing to take the relationship a bit further. Put them in front of the camera and let the world hear what they’ve got to say.

There’s No Need for Many Links

Too much of anything can be bad — and the same thing goes with links. Facebook wants us to get more people into the platform and not the other way around. Therefore, the website’s algorithm favors posts that are originally found on Facebook instead of the ones that lead people to other sites.

This means if you post content directly on Facebook, chances are it will consistently resurface in more news feeds. It also leads to a larger Facebook organic reach, boosting your engagement significantly.

See How Your Competitors are Doing

You can gauge what your audience likes to see more of by referring to post performance. However, it’s worth noting that you are not limited to checking your own content. Similar to any other form of digital marketing, doing some competitor research is an effective way to improve your strategy.

Facebook makes that process easier as long as you can identify your competitors. Do your research and investigate which post types are working well for other businesses in the same industry. Of course, you can’t copy another company’s business strategy, so just use what you learn as inspiration on planning your own approach.

Share Your Ideas with Statuses and Emojis

In every post you make, the goal is to catch the reader’s eye as they scroll furiously through their feed. If you can’t even make them stop for a beat to see your post, you have no shot at engaging them. It helps if you include an emoji and make each post as compelling as you can. You must do something that will make your post stand out from the usual content people see in their news feed.

Not a fan of emojis? Maybe now is the time to love them. Emojis and statuses like “feeling wonderful” seem to be more eye-catching compared to ordinary and boring posts.

Less is More

Most people think that posting more equates to more engagement. While this may be true for some, it’s not effective for a lot of people. Allowing your schedule to dictate your content can also be bad for your brand.

For instance, if you decide to post four times per day, you must come up with content even if it’s of a mediocre quality. Any post that’s “just okay” is obviously not good because all your content needs to be top-notch for a wider organic reach.

Instead, online marketers recommend posting no more than once a day or a few times each week. This lets them give emphasis on high-quality posts — which results in an increased organic reach on Facebook.

Tag Relevant Pages

Are you tagging a place or business in your post? Don’t forget to tag them — or anything that has an official Facebook page. It helps by expanding the reach of your post to the feeds of anyone who are followers of those pages.

Facebook will show them your post even though they’re not following your page. This method works great because the chances of your page getting more likes increases as well.

Focus on Longer and Better Words

Captions play a big role in every post. Have you tried writing longer captions on your Facebook posts? Captions that are long enough to trigger the “See More” link are actually effective engagement boosters because readers are compelled to click them.

If your content is interesting, it will capture the attention of more people. Since they can’t see the entire post because of its length, they need to click the “See More” button. This is a smart way to get more clicks on your posts.

It’s All Up to You

There’s no solid formula to skyrocket your organic reach on Facebook. The only way to increase engagement is by digging deep into your audience. What are their frustrations? What motivates them? What are their goals?

Keep in mind that no user is the same. But if you have a clear picture of who you’re trying to reach, it’s easier to point out which content and formats are suitable for getting that message across. Good luck with gaining more Facebook followers!