Given the ever-increasing kerfuffle about dwindling organic reach of Facebook Page posts, I decided to take a look at four Pages I have access to and check some numbers. Here are 5 Facebook Page performance stats I’ve produced, based on the 40 most recent posts from each of these Pages, averaged out *.
1. Reach
The average reach of the last 40 posts from each of the 4 Pages (i.e. 160 posts in total) was 36% (of the Page’s ‘likes’).
2. Boosts
When boosted posts were discounted, the average reach fell to 27%.
3. Shared
When posts by these Pages were not shared, the reach fell further, to 19%.
4. Links
For posts that contained a link leading away from Facebook, the number decreased to 12%.
5. Questions & Opinions
Among posts that were not shared, those posing questions or seeking opinions did not perform significantly better than simple image or video postings, at 23% v 19%.
The Pages analysed were chosen because they would be typical of small businesses, often with no more than 2 employees, where posting is rarely more often than once a day, but equally unlikely to be less frequent than 4 times per week.
These Pages would all have between 800 and 2,000 ‘likes’. While I haven’t gone into the frequency of likes and comments, it can be taken that most posts would have a number of comments or likes, but would be unlikely to generate tens of either terribly often.
* Notes on Facebook Page Performance
1. This research does not claim to be a thorough representation of what’s going on with Facebook Pages generally.
2. All 160 posts contained at least one image or video – none was text-only.
3. No post was guilty of “click baiting“.
4. I haven’t taken into account the time of posting.
Facebook Page Performance Resources
The internet is jammed with resources on how to optimise your Facebook Page performance and listing some is almost pointless. Nevertheless, here are just 3 I frequently check in on.