Facebook Reach Is Falling. Now What?

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis:  Facebook is the most commonly used social media communications channel for local health departments, with 44 percent using it (source: NACCHO’s 2013 National Profile of Local Health Departments). Recent statistics show that the ability to reach target audiences via Facebook has declined significantly since December 2013. An average Facebook post now only reaches 2-3 percent of a Facebook Page’s fans. This session discusses the implications of Facebook’s declining reach and provides new solutions for organizations that rely on Facebook to reach their audiences.  

Methods and Results (informing the conceptual analysis):  Facebook Brand Page reach declined by 44 percent after a December 2013 Facebook news algorithm change (source: Ignite Social Media). Facebook acknowledged that this decrease in reach will not only continue but it will get worse. Facebook specifically said: “We expect organic distribution of an individual page's posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.” Facebook once said that Brand Page posts reach 16 percent of fans. Recent data suggests that has fallen to 2-3 percent (source: multiple studies of thousands of Facebook Pages). Experts, citing Facebook insiders, predict that organic reach of Brand Page posts will be zero in the near future. This issue of declining reach is compounded by “content decay.” Data from SocialBakers shows that the half-life of a Facebook Page post is 30 minutes, meaning that content can decay before your audience even gets a chance to see it. On average, if your post is not seen within three hours it will be lost forever (source: Facebook). And, Facebook is not indexed by search engines; therefore once content has decayed it will likely never be found again. One solution to content decay is using a blog, which is indexed by search engines, as a central publishing platform. However, only 5 percent of local health departments use a blog (source: NACCHO). 

Conclusions:  These trends indicate that public health agencies can no longer rely on Facebook to reach their audiences, especially with urgent messages because of rapid content decay. In addition, because Facebook is not indexed by search engines, it is ineffective as a single platform for long-term communications strategies. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  Public health agencies must redefine their Facebook strategies. This session will discuss in detail three implications to consider when planning Facebook Pages and proposed solutions:

• New content posting strategies that are necessary to reach more users
• Facebook should only be considered as one element of a broader “hub and spoke” content publishing approach
• Advertising on Facebook may now be a necessity to achieve reach