Firstly, we have the challenge of the audience being less connected due to high levels of nationwide load shedding. Now pair that with Facebook rolling out algorithm updates, and the result is reduced brand page content performance. 

But don’t worry, we’ll propose some ways to lift organic engagement a little further down.

Now let’s take a look at whether Instagram has also seen reduced engagement.

Again, if we look on Meltwater and compare engagement month to month, the stats were a little less scary 4%-42% down - but still quite worrisome none the less.

Hear about the Dec. 2022 Facebook algorithm update? Nope? Well Meta wasn’t overly public about any big changes however numerous sources are seeing significant declines in the organic reach of brand content.

On 13 March 2023 Ignite analysts published an article about 689 posts across 21 brand pages (all of significant size, across a variety of industries) and found that, in the week since December 1, 2022, organic reach and organic reach percentage have each declined by 44% on average, with some pages seeing declines as high as 88%.

Upon further investigation – we compared the recent Facebook Transparency Report on Widely Viewed Content to the one from late 2021, and quickly saw that there has indeed been serious changes to what Meta is serving up to users in their feeds.

The Facebook Transparency Widely Viewed Q4 2022 Content Report (United States between 2022-10-01 and 2022-12-31) shows us the following: “We provide insights into the various content types that appear on Feed to help people better understand our distribution systems and how they influence the content people see on Facebook.”

By far, the most common experience in Feed for people in the US is to see posts without links, posts from their friends, or from Groups they’ve joined.

Pages followed content is only 8.2% - YIKES !

Now let’s compare that to the Q3 2021 report

14.9% (Q4 2022) - 8.2% (Q3 2021) is a 45% decline

“Reach of Facebook Brand Pages is Often Under 3%
Facebook once said that brand posts reach approximately 16% of their fans. That number is no longer achievable for many brands, and our analysis shows that roughly 2.5% is now more likely for standard posts on large pages. So, a year ago a brand could expect to reach 16 out of 100 fans and now that brand is lucky if they get 3 out of 100.” (Ignite analysts)

Understandably this is sad for brands who have worked very hard to foster a following and it is believed that organic followers who engage with brand content are more likely to make ‘quality purchase behaviours’ than those reached solely via paid media.

In a nutshell, the Facebook algorithm is trying to define ‘quality’ by source, so if it comes from publisher X it might be deemed as high-quality vs publisher Y (low quality). 

As of 2023, the Facebook algorithm determines which content is most relevant to a particular user based on three main ranking signals:

1. Who posted it: You’re more likely to see content from sources you interact with, including friends and businesses.
2. Type of content: If you most often interact with video, you’ll see more video. If you engage with photos, you’ll see more photos. You get the idea.
3. Interactions with the post: The algorithm will prioritise posts with a lot of engagement, especially from people you interact with a lot.

• Inventory

The first item the algorithm considers is your inventory, or the total set of posts you could see when you open Facebook. This includes all the posts shared by the people you have connected to as ‘friends’, the Pages you follow and the Groups you have joined, interspersed with ads and recommended content we think will be relevant to you based on your Facebook activity.

• Signals

Then, for each of these posts, the algorithm considers multiple factors such as who posted it; how you have previously interacted with that person; whether it’s a photo, a video, a link; and how popular the post is based on things like how many of your Friends liked it, Pages that re-shared it, etc. All of these factors are called signals.

• Predictions

From there, the algorithm uses these signals to make a series of personalized predictions about each post based on how likely it is to be relevant to you: for example, whether it’s from your friends or family, how likely you might be to comment on it, how likely it is to foster a meaningful interaction, how likely you might be to find it on your own, or if it contains a quality indicator (if a piece of news is original content the algorithm assigns it a higher personalized relevance score, and it will often show up closer to the top of your Feed). We also run a number of surveys asking people whether a post was "worth your time," and based on those survey responses, we predict how likely people are to find a post worthwhile. Posts that are predicted to be more worthwhile are shown higher up in Feed.

• Relevance

Lastly, the algorithm calculates a relevance score for each post in your inventory based on these signals and predictions. Posts with higher scores are more likely to be interesting to you, so they’ll be placed closer to the top of your Feed, and posts with lower scores will be closer to the bottom.

Tip: Work intentionally to produce quality content and avoid REDUCED DISTRIBUTION.

You know how Facebook asks users if they like this content or ‘is it worth their time?’ If users consistently say ‘no’ or ‘this is spam’ then the content can be tagged for reduced distribution.

Marketers should remember the 80/20 rule on organic:

· 80% of content educates, entertains, inspires – ideally driving natural human to human ‘meaningful’ engagement
· 20% other (Product & Price for instance)

Quality over quantity is key – don’t post just for the sake of posting. Only post if it adds value, is relevant, entertaining or engagement worthy.

• Content where users learn something does well, often delivering optimal retention; always make sure your content adds value to the end consumer
• People like to see when brands celebrate competition winners – so try showcasing winners on your feed and see if it uplifts engagement
• People like it when there is something in it for them like a chance to win
• Relevancy is key, it was no surprise to see tactical content like load shedding tips did well in South Africa