If you haven’t already noticed, your practice’s Facebook updates are being seen by less and less of your Fans, even if you’ve steadily grown the total number of ‘likes’. What’s the reason for this? In short, the “free ride” is over!
According to Valleywag, your Fan page posts are now only being seen by 1-2% of your your total Fans. This “organic reach,” which was about 16% two years ago (according to Facebook themselves) has steadily dropped. Why? Facebook wants businesses to start paying for exposure beyond the measly 1-2% you’re now getting.
While your practice may have worked hard to grow Fans organically, with well-timed emails and in-office collateral, it may have been for naught. Even if you’ve grown your ‘likes’ from 200 to 2,000 over the past two years, what’s the point if only 20 of those 2,000 see your posts?
So where does this leave your Facebook marketing strategy? Is there any reason to continue using Facebook? Your practice should still actively post to Facebook, but consider rewarding engagement. This can be accomplished by giving away gift cards or services for those who comment, ‘like’, or share a post. This requires people to “seek out” your page. However, even if you’re spurring on engagement you’re still limited by the 1-2% reach.
That leaves you with only one other option, which Facebook would prefer: advertise. Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where you have no other option than to “pay to play.”
So what’s the good news? Facebook’s advertising has evolved quite a bit over the past two years. Rather than run basic ads that target people based on location, age, gender, etc., you can now target prospective patients in effective, new ways. You can now re-target to people who’ve been to your website with unique Facebook sponsored posts. You can also target people who ‘like’ your competitors, partners, or others who share the same target market.
While Facebook’s latest move is annoying, to say the least, it makes sense because Facebook is still a business that needs to generate revenue (and please shareholders). My suggestion for most practices is to start with re-targeting campaigns, which are very cost-effective, and go from there.
If you’d like to learn more about how your practice can get the most out of Facebook then leave TRBO a note here, or call us directly at 877-673-7096 x2.
