Many people are frustrated with Facebook. They are complaining that too few people are seeing their Page posts. Some have spent a considerable amount of money to grow the number of likes for their pages and what are they seeing now? A dwindling number of people seeing their Page posts.

I think some might feel that Facebook have “cheated” them. I don’t blame them. If they have spent a huge amount of money and they are now not getting any returns on that investment, I too would feel like I have been cheated.

A recent report by Edgerank Checker revealed that organic reach per fan has gone down to a paltry figure of 6.51% when it was at one time 16% in 2012,  although that is already quite a low ball number.

Although these low numbers in organic reach per fan have to a certain extent been “rationalised” by Brian Poland, the VP of Facebook’s Ads Marketing team himself who addresses this concern among Facebook Page owners with thousands and thousands of fans. Brian gave 2 reasons to why organic reach is declining.

One is the simple fact that more and more content is being created and shared every day to the point that there is more competition for space on the newsfeed. Also, they gave the reasoning that the total number of Pages liked by a typical Facebook user have grown to more than 50% in recent years.

The second reason given is that of how Facebook’s News feed works. It is said that News feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. They could have easily seen 1,500+ stories whenever they log on to Facebook but the News feed is currently only showing approximately 300.

Now, how are all these stories ranked?

Facebook says that they are looking at each story in relation to the thousands of factors relative to each person. In order words, the algorithms are working in the background to make decisions for us in relation to matters of what content we see on our own News feed. I guess we have no choice but to trust that the algorithms are doing their work the best they can to benefit the users and of of course to the detriment of the Page owners who now have to pay to have a content from their businesses being seen by their fans.

However, there are still a few ways we can still get free traffic from Facebook. We just need to observe a few key principles and apply it for our business. Lets explore!

4 Powerful Tips to Get Free Traffic From Facebook

1. Create Great Content on your Website and Share it on Facebook

If your website gets updated as often as a Gambel quail hen lays eggs that is like once a year, then you will have a big problem with getting traffic to your site. Also, trying to post the same stuff over and over again on Facebook of the same stuff is just like someone trying to ride a downhill mountain bike uphill. You can try doing it but its going to bore your audience to pieces and there is the danger of some people eventually finding out about your obsessive-compulsive disorder problem.

If you are someone who have been reading up with what’s the in thing these days, you will surely know that content marketing is the name of the game these days.

Not only does fresh new content give you a reason for the search engines to rank you higher in the search engine results page (SERP), you will also be seen as someone who is prolific in your area of expertise and someone who is going all out to be helpful. Posting new content in the form of new articles and blog posts once a week or even once a forthnight will definitely be helpful for your website and can help bring in the traffic that your business needs.

Posting less than once a week will be hard for your followers to keep up the interest that they have with you in the first place.

Try using this social media content calendar template from Hubspot to help you plan your content schedule in a more efficient manner and not miss any more postings that you should have made.

Below are 3 more ideas that you can use to create great content for your website and use it later to share on Facebook to get free traffic.

• Write about a tool that you have discovered that can help the people in your niche. It could be a check list or a template that can help the gardeners in your gardening community to help them water and fertilise their plants on time for example. It could be a tool that can help writers break through writer’s block. Whatever the community that you are serving, there is certainly something that you can share with them to make the activity that they are doing more meaningful or helps improve a desired outcome.
• Create a simple poster with some words of encouragement using Canva. Canva allows you to start designing fast even though you might not be a designer yourself. Some have called it “The easiest to use design program in the world” (The Webbys) and Canva is well known for allowing practically anyone to be a designer. You can create many types of content using Canva, from pre-sized social media image to presentations and even ads. In fact you will find everything you need to create a custom project for your business that you can later share it to get more free traffic from Facebook.
• Write about someone in your niche who have achieved some success. Find someone in your niche who have done something that many would like to aspire to do. I have a blog that writes about guppies and I have used this tactic to create a piece of content that I later shared on Facebook and which gained good traction and free traffic from Facebook. What I did was that I interviewed a guppy breeder whom specialised in a specific type of guppy believed to be one of the more challenging strains to keep and rear. However, the breeder has done well with this guppy strain and he definitely deserved an interview which I later published on my blog. You can read about the article here: Interview with Alvin Ho, the Albino Full Red Guppy Breeder.

2. Add Links to your Website on your About Page

There are spaces on your Facebook profile page which you can insert links to your website.

You will be surprised that many people actually check out the profile page of other people on Facebook. Especially if they have not really known you outside of Facebook.

Above is my very own editing section of my profile page. You can add some links to your website in the section of “Work and Education”. Above it is of course the name of your own company and the position that you hold in your company. However, the best place to put your link is still at the “Contact and basic Info section” as seen below.

When visitors to your profile visit your profile page, they well then be able to see all the links to the web properties that you own.

I have people messaging me about my business after they have visited my profile page. It seems that they visited my websites before they messaged me. Most of them will ask me about what my business really do and by visiting my website, they learn more about my various businesses.

I have gotten some good leads from Facebook. It has in fact lead me to make some good sales. Those leads made me sales in the five figures amount. You never know where your next sale might come from. As an entrepreneur, you just need to be open minded and learn to value add other people’s lives and the profits will role along.

I have also made new friends on Facebook and gone on to meet some of them in the real world. Some meetups have led to new business collaborations while others don’t. But what I have learned is that making new friends and getting new contacts most of the time is a good thing and should be seen in a positive light. You might get referrals through your new contacts and these referrals might even refer you more people. You must understand that informal word of mouth marketing is a strong force. It is hard to actually measure the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing but in my personal experience it pays to have a squeaky clean personal branding. It makes people want to refer you to others.

3. Join Facebook Groups in your Niche Area and Help Others in the Group

I am sure that you are a member of a Facebook group that is related to your area of interest or your industry. Besides of course networking and getting in touch with friends and family, most of us would have joined a Facebook group that talks and discuss about our interest.

Heck, I personally join more than 20 Facebook groups ranging from those that talk about keeping spiders as pets to more serious types that discuss about growing a business tribe. Of course I don’t join those groups with the intention of dropping my website links.

I mean, some of you might be thinking, “Can I join a Facebook group and start dropping my website links?”

Don’t, please don’t do that. You might just get your a** kicked out of the group by the group admins.

In fact, most of the Facebook groups out there (especially the really cool ones) have rules and regulations that discourage you from just dropping links that way. Its just too spammy and people hate spams. In fact some groups even won’t even allow a motivational video to be posted in the group. As such, do be mindful of what the group rules are and become an abiding member. You can still share your website’s resources in the group but you have got to be smart.

Above are some group rules from a Facebook group which has more than 14,000 members.

If you are in such a group and you intend to share some links, make sure that you adhere closely to their rules.

Let us look at one way in  which would allow you to share a link and on top of that get Likes for doing it. Yup, likes to your post instead of being seen as someone who is just an opportunist.

The way to do it is to provide help and assistance to people in the group who are asking for help. When someone ask a question about a problem that they are facing, you can and should post a link to an article from your website that you or someone in your company have written that addresses the issue or problem faced by the member of the Facebook group. By doing so, you are not seen as spamming the group. Conversely, you are seen in a more positively light, as someone who is trying to help a member of the group.

Do take note however that you must be sincere when you provide help to someone in the group. Do not drop links to only your websites when you provide help. This can still be seen as spamming too. People are just going to realise that you are spamming the group’s news feed and you might just be called out for it. If you know of a resource that addresses the problem in a better way, provide the link to that resource even though the website doesn’t belong to you. Think about giving help first and providing value to the group before anything else.

4. Create your Own Facebook Group and Share Great Content with the Group

It is easy to create a Facebook group. In fact you should try starting one and experience for yourself what it takes to bring up a Facebook group to a level that makes thousands of people wanting to join the group.

One way for you to showcase and establish your expertise in a chosen field of yours is through starting a Facebook group. Get your group to represent something. If for example you are in a big niche such as social media marketing for example, you might want to be more specialised and cater to the people who are more localised and living in your city for example.

You can also specialise in a niche within a niche like focusing on the use of visual content in social media marketing. When you do that, it not only allow you to be seen as an expert in that particular area but most likely you will also be getting less competition. When there is lesser competition, you will also get noticed much easier and that is a good thing my friend in this age of clutter where you only have just a few seconds before your site visitor goes on to something else.

When you have already started a Facebook group and established yourself as an expert, you can share the content of your site to your group members. If it is an opened group, you will have the chance of getting your content being seen by more people. Some people might not request to be part of a closed group thinking that it is only made for a closed group of people. As such create an open group so that more people will be inclined to ask to join your group.

The point is that there is always  a space that you can occupy and get yourself seen as an expert. You just need to be more aware of what is around you and look at the opportunities available with a deeper insight.

After that, fill that space.

Heeyaah!

Conclusion 

I hope that you can use some of the tips that I have provided for you to use it to get Free traffic from Facebook. It might not be as easy as when Facebook first started years ago but it is still possible.

Create great content that can go viral on Facebook and use visual content to your advantage. Don’t forget to add your website links in your profile page. I personally have benefited from this.

Join Facebook groups and make yourself useful in the group and share your powerful content with other members in the group. Most importantly try to be as helpful as possible.

Last but not least, start your own Facebook group and establish yourself as an expert. Try to occupy a niche within a bigger niche where you can occupy a space with lesser competition. Think of a niche within niche space to occupy if you are a one man team or have a small team working with you. It is ok to occupy a more focused area but with a big potential rather than trying to occupy a space that is so competitive that your voice gets dimmed by all the noise.

To your success!

– Ardy Ismail