Everyone wants ways to increase their social media reach. The first step to increase reach is to understand the types of engagement a social media platform will find relevant. This will, in turn, help you define your end goal and set your marketing plan up for success.
First, let’s define reach. Facebook describes reach as the number of people who have seen your post. There are three types of reach you should know about; organic, paid, and viral. Any business can pay to be seen, but it can get very expensive to consistently pay for reach, and viral is very illusive. Organic is a much better type of reach most organizations should focus on.
To get the best organic reach possible, you need to understand what type of engagement a social media platform finds relevant. Here is the specific order that Facebook weights engagement.
- Comment
- Check-In
- Share
- Like
Facebook ranks a comment over a check-in, a check-in over a share, and a share over a like. Why does Facebook find relevancy in a comment, check-in or share over a like? It’s all about chatter. Focusing on this order should help your business attain more reach.
Comments – Facebook weights a comment the highest because posts that receive a lot of comments have high value (good or bad) with customers and prospects.
Check-ins – When someone “checks-in” on a social media page, they are letting their social media followers know, “I use this business, I’m here right now and I’ve had a good enough experience that I care to let you know.”
How do you get check-ins? Offer free wi-fi for anyone who checks into your location through Facebook. Everyone loves access to free wi-fi.
Shares – When a user shares content, they place a business’s video, article or picture on their own feed. This is important because it exposes the business’s content to that user’s followers. Social media platforms feel that if an individual cares enough to align themselves with your content, then the content deserves relevancy.
Likes – The lowest on the relevancy scale is a like, but it shouldn’t be ignored. It’s the easiest type of engagement, and with enough likes, a post can get a ton of reach.
Knowing the types of engagement and understanding how Facebook, or another social media platform, assigns relevancy is key. Want to know what Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and others think are the most important types of engagement? Contact us today.
