Facebook has once again tweaked their infamous edgerank algorithm, this time further reducing the organic reach on Pages to a measly 6%. For large pages with more than 500,000 Likes, organic reach hit 2 percent in February. If you have been following the slow and steady decline that started back in 2012, one thing has become very clear- organic reach is on it’s way to zero.

So in short, you have to EARN your space in the News Feed.

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This decline could appear as a malicious attempt to force marketers to start paying for advertising, but in reality there are many reasons why they are limiting organic reach. As competition grows and the attention span of fans gets shorter and shorter, the quality of the News feed becomes increasingly more important. There’s a reason why Facebook users stay on the social site for an average of 20 minutes per session- and that’s because Facebook’s Edgerank Algorithm is good at determining what posts users will see in their feed. Curating good content is more important than ever, since engagement on posts is one of the largest determining factors of whether a Page’s reach will increase or decrease. And to be clear, “good” content has nothing to do with what YOU want to say, but everything to do with what your audience wants to hear.

Content should be:

Timely– posts should be going out at peak traffic times and this differs from page to page. Check your Facebook insights to see when your audience is most active and plan posts around those times.

Valuable– keep it relevant and interesting. You’re competing for your fan’s attention amongst many other competitors so make sure they’re getting something unique out of your posts.

Shareworthy– before publishing a post ask yourself, would YOU share that with your own network? Chances are if the answer is no then your fans won’t be sharing it either.

Aside from posting valuable content, boosting your engagement via Facebook advertising is another way to ensure your reach stays above 6%. If you’re already using advertising for Page Likes, it would be beneficial to allocate some of your ad spend dollars to boosting posts. And if you’re NOT already using Facebook advertising… well, this would be an appropriate time to start reaching into your pockets and forking over some marketing dollars.

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from all this is that successful Facebook marketing will take more time, more creativity and more money. In other words- it’s now more important than ever to have professional help managing your Facebook page.