Reasons Why Your Facebook Posts May Go Unnoticed

Data from Social@Ogilvy recently revealed that the average reach of organic brand posts on Facebook slipped to 6.2% in February, from 12.1% in October. This is most likely directly linked to the social network’s aim of keeping users active whilst restricting brand messages that fail to deliver value or resonate with its community. Much of the content on Facebook goes unseen by user as the network now employs news-feed algorithms that select only the most interesting and relevant posts to appear in users’ news-feeds.

One of the reasons behind the declining organic search on Facebook is the higher number of friends that people now have on the channel, The Ad Age says in a post. A greater number of friends means more status updates filling users’ feeds. This is at the expense of brand posts that aren’t supported by ad spend, the article’s author Cotton Delo suggests.

An increase in the number of brands that people follow on Facebook is also relevant; last year, monthly active users liked an average of 40 brand pages, which generated approximately 1,440 updates each month – far above the figures from 2009 that showed 22.5 monthly updates from the average 4.5 brands followed by users, figures from Socialbakers revealed in September.

The lower visibility of branded messages could be also explained with some changes to Facebook’s news-feed algorithms to promote more links to news articles – particularly for mobile users. This move was again part of the social network’s plan to boost the appeal of its content, which at the same time affected the visibility of branded messages.