Facebook has long been the reigning king of organic, social outreach. However, the social network is now rolling back the number of friends and fans that actually see your posts.
According to a recent study released by [email protected], we appear to be approaching “Facebook Zero,” in which organic reach of the content that brands publish on Facebook is effectively 0 percent.
What does this mean for lawyers trying to market on social media? The industry has declared that we now live in an age of “pay to play.” Check out our infographic displaying how promotion on Facebook has changed:
In 2012, Facebook restricted the organic reach of content published from brand pages to about 16 percent. Organic reach was reduced to an even lower number in December 2013. In February 2014, organic reach hovered around 6 percent.
Organic reach for large pages with over 500,000 “likes” hit an all-time low of about 2 percent this past February. In addition, sources from Facebook are allegedly unofficially advising community managers that their organic reach will decrease to zero in the near future.
Promoted posts are more valuable than ever. While others are lamenting the change in sites like Facebook from owned to paid media, smart marketing agencies will act quickly and seize opportunities to leverage paid social media strategies.
At GNGF, we recommend acting quickly to take advantage of “pay to play” campaigns while your competitors stew about the changing social landscape. Doing so can put you in the best possible position to outshine your competition on Facebook.