Help! Why Aren't More of My Followers Seeing My Posts?

“I have X amount of Facebook followers, so why am I getting barely any reach or engagement?”?

This is a common question that we frequently get from our clients. Reasons can vary depending on a few different factors, but I will be going into detail regarding the two most likely causes.?

First, I need to explain how the Facebook follower system and Facebook News Feeds work.?

The way that the Facebook follower system works is that people have the option to choose how often they will see content from your Facebook page. Unless they set your page to Favorites, Facebook will default your page to their usual setting based on post engagement.?

The Facebook News Feed is set up so that, unless the user actively chooses to switch their settings to a chronological timeline (sorting posts based on the time and date they were posted, with recent posts at the top), their timeline is automatically sorted by engagement. This new default means that the posts with the most likes, comments, and shares will be pushed to the top and other posts with less engagement will be pushed towards the bottom. Facebook’s goal is to keep engagement high so people stay on their platform for as long as possible.?

All this is to say that even if you have a follower count of 500+, per post, you might still get a low engagement and thus a smaller overall reach.?

The best way to get around this is by sharing posts and running ads. The more times the post is shared, the more Facebook will take notice of it and push it towards the top of News Feeds. It also gives that post more exposure since it is being reposted to other Facebook pages with their own followers and likes. Joining and sharing to Facebook community groups is especially effective.?

For example, I had a client reach out to me asking about a post on their page that only had a reach of 25. They were confused—they had a follower count of 300+, so why hadn’t more followers seen their post? What most likely happened was that post didn't get a lot of engagement off the bat, and since News Feeds are ranked based on engagement, it only reached 25 people. Those 25 people were probably folks who had their page set as a Favorite in their follow settings and/or who have their News Feed set to be in chronological order.

For a direct comparison, a few days after our conversation this client shared a different post on their page twice, and it got a reach of 355. I’ve attached both posts below. There’s really not much of a difference between the two layout wise, and they were posted at the same time of day. The only real difference was that one post was shared and one post was not.

The only other thing that gets ranked higher than engagement posts is paid ads. You pay Facebook X-amount of money, choose the people and location you want to target with your ad, and Facebook will add your post to people's News Feeds both on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook does require a minimum budget of one dollar per day but, other than that, the budget is up to you. You'll have better results the more you increase your budget, but ads don't need a big budget to get big numbers.?

For example, a recent ad we ran for one of our Social Marketing Plus clients with 738 followers had a budget of $100 dollars and it ran for 7 days. That ad ended up with a reach of 12,996 people. It was the first ad the company has done with us and, since then, their overall page reach has increased by 1032%.

I hope I was able to give some insight into Facebook reach and engagement. If you have questions or thoughts on anything discussed in this article, please feel free to leave them in the comments below! I’ll be happy to answer them. Want to learn more about social media marketing? Check out our page for more tips, tricks, and advice for you to follow!