Organic search through Facebook is becoming obsolete. In the last few months, there has been a huge shrink in the number of Facebook organic searches. Millions of business owners are witnessing a similar crisis.

So, what’s happening?

Organic Reach of Facebook

Most people may not be aware of what is organic reach and how it affects your business. Organic reach is the number of people that can see your post free of cost. So, the content can be seen by all the followers of the brand.

Facebook launched the ‘Fan Page’ in the year 2007 to help the followers see messages and posts sent out by the brands easily. Since 2012, the organic reach of Facebook has been restricted to up to 16%. And, organic reach has been deteriorating ever since then.

According to the statistics, the organic reach of Facebook is now around 6% after a deterioration of 49% in mere 5 months. However, the recent data has reported a decline of 52% with a study on 3000 Facebook pages.

Facebook’s Statement about Organic Reach

According to Facebook, there are two reasons behind the decline in organic reach. They are:

1.Due to the increase in the amount of content creation, a lot of competition can be seen to grab the attention of the user. Facebook has said that a maximum of 1500 stories can be showcased in a user’s feed. If you have more friends or page likes, more stories can be seen on the feed.

2.Instead of showing all the content to the users, Facebook tries to feature the most relevant content to the users through the feed. From most important one to least is featured on the news feed.

Facebook Determines What to Show

Facebook Newsfeed algorithm is the most sophisticated yet complicated. The point-based system is followed for the newsfeed. The next post gets a point and the link gets another point. On the other hand, the algorithm can multiply format value points according to the interaction with the people.

Over the years, Facebook has been updating its algorithm. Later on, Edge Rank is introduced based on the chronological post. Till the year 2011, it has been in practice.

Presently, Facebook is using artificial intelligence learning-based algorithm. Facebook aims to create an algorithm that matches News Feed with the individual user’s interest. Posts from friends usually get high rank than the post from brands. If a subject matter is loved by the Facebook user then it may get a higher rank too.

For example, a lot of baby posts may appear on your news feed. However, you may not like your news feed with the baby post. Still, you can see it on the feed as it is loved by all.

Are Paid Options More Viable?

Facebook is transforming itself into a paid option. If you pay more money, you can get more visibility. It is stated by Facebook that they are not trying to make money out of it. However, pages can achieve better engagement with the paid advertising option. The organic reach of Facebook will be zero in some time. So, it is going to become mandatory to boost the effort on social media with paid advertising.