I’m always experimenting with new tactics to increase our reach and deepen the engagement on our social media channels. With Facebook throttling-back the organic reach of all Facebook pages you have to either have deep pockets, or be smart about how to increase the reach to your existing followers.
Facebook obviously allows you to sponsor posts which means that you can actually reach all your audience online, but churches and non-profits that operate on a shoe-string budget can’t always afford to pay to get coverage.
I don’t remember how I came across this tactic, but it’s fantastic and works really well. There is a small caution, use the tactic very sparingly. Ensure that the post is super relevant to your whole audience. Your audience will switch off if they feel liked they are being spammed.
We had a post that was applicable for the whole of our church. Our Senior Pastor was returning from long service leave after a few months away. He had been challenged to do the Ice Bucket Challenge so we filmed it and used the post as a way of re-introducing him online back to the community after his time away.
After shooting it, we uploaded the video directly into Facebook page and scheduled the post for the early evening which is when we have our highest audience. Check your own Facebook page’s insights for your best time and schedule accordingly. Ours is below, you can see how our audience grows throughout the day.
I then wrote a very short email from the ‘Crossway Ice Bucket Team’ with a short introduction to the challenge with a link to the scheduled Facebook post to watch our Pastor to undertake the challenge. The email was short and had one call to action. Click the link and watch the video.
Using our email marketing solution we then targeted an existing list we have of all of our regular attenders that we regularly communicate with. The email was scheduled to be sent out one hour after the Facebook post was scheduled.
We had a 42% click-through rate to watch the video from the emails. Here are the results below from Facebook. The insight I liked the most was that over half our audience saw the post organically and over 800 people actually watched the whole video (You can see the Facebook post here).
Recap
Leverage your existing email audience to boost your reach for free. Make sure that your social media post is applicable and interesting for all your email audience.
Your email audience will also see your Facebook presence, so many who have not have already liked your Facebook page may become fans. More importantly they will see the news you want to tell them. 🙂
Your turn
What tactics do you use on Facebook to reach more people free? Do you have any comments on this post? Comment below.
