Organic reach on Facebook pages has significantly decreased from 2012 to 2013 according to an analysis of over 2,300 posts. The average organic reach conversion in September 2012 was 14.8% but dropped to only 4.63% in September 2013. Status updates had the highest organic reach of around 21% while other post types like photos, videos, and links had much lower reach of around 4-5%. Several factors like page size, use of paid promotion, engagement rates, and post types can affect organic reach but page engagement does not influence reach. Regular use of Facebook ads and developing campaigns that boost viral reach through engagement are recommended to help increase a page's total reach.

1. Head Turners of Today’s
Attention Economy
http://41-29.com
Facebook
Organic Reach
Analysis
by Candaş Demir
October 2013

2. Problem with Organic Reaches on Facebook
We at 41? 29! are working with more than 30 brands who are trying to reach
and contact with their fans. Our social media managers are the bridge
between the brands and their fans. The biggest social network in Turkey is
Facebook with nearly 32 million users. Turkish people love to engage on
Facebook. However, thanks to Facebook, pages reaching to its fans is getting
harder and harder. As an analyst, we have compared September 2012 and
September 2013 on several basis.
Quick overview, from September 2012 to September 2013 the major update on
the “News Feed Algorithm” was saying goodbye to “Edge Rank” on 6 Aug’ 2013
and after that Facebook starts to test and effects of this change reflects to our
pages on September. Before moving into the effects, we also need to mention
period of Gezi Park Protests. We have ceased the communication on pages
during June 2013.
At last but not least, I need to mention what we’ll cover:
 Organic Reach Analysis
 Organic Reach Analysis according to Post Types
 What Affects Organic Reach
1

3. September 2013
We have analyzed 1475 posts from 23 different pages (from various sectors
such as consumer goods, automotive, technology) we have shared during
September 2013.
Post Types
2%
4%
16%
78%
Link
Photo
Status Update
Video
We mostly used photos to get attention of users and engage with them. This
has been an overall strategy all around the world nearly for past two years.
Although it’s reasonable to use photos, key metric is reach!
2

4. Now, take a closer look to our pages.
Number of Posts & Pages (w/t Fan Amounts)
Number of Posted
Number of Pages
800
6
703
700
5
5
600
4
500
4
4
400
3
315
300
2
200
2
97
1
14
60
2
1
1
100
2
59
1
1
38
45
0
92
52
0
Fan Amounts
So, out of our 23 pages, 7 of them have over 1 million fans and we have shared
755 posts on these pages which makes the nearly half of the dataset. Also,
answers resulted from analysis based on dataset is not too reliable for pages
that has lower than 10.000 fans (since we have 14 data).
3

5. Let’s take a look at the organic reaches,
Average organic reach of 1475 posts that we shared during September 2013 is
4.63% of Lifetime Total Likes. Here is the Lifetime Total Likes’ conversion to
organic reach.
Organic Reach Conversion (%)
Type
Video
4.64
Status Update
21.20
Photo
4.44
Link
3.39
0
5
10
15
20
25 %
If we are talking about a page of 100 fans, averages state that if you publish a
status update (text post), it will reach nearly 21 fan. If you share video, photo
or link it will reach nearly 5 fan. It’s a gap.
When analyzing the data, We have figured that source of this gap may be
related to size of the pages, fan amounts. The analyzed 23 pages average total
likes is 535,521.
4

6. Organic Reach Conversion (w/t Post Types)
Link
Photo
Status Update
Video
30
24.92
25
21.52
20
15.72
14.89
15
13.75
11.83
10
6.39
5
6.35
3.03
7.83
8.62
6.68
6.31
4.33
2.77
4.89
3.54
1.61
3.70 3.71
3.39
3.50 3.09
3.24
0

Now, this is chart tells amazing stories and the missing points of our data. Organic
reach of Photos starts to decrease after the page gains 10,000 fans. After 1 million,
organic reach of Photos drops below 4% (this level is also observed at 50,000-99,999
but when comparing to neighbors our data maybe outlier or the lowest level.)

After 150.000 fans, organic reach of video posts has decreased below 4.5% (except 1
mio to 1,5 mio) If we also think to conversion of reach to watch, Facebook makes it
impossible to make fans watch your video.

Status Updates are only 2% of our 1.475 posts database, however at every fan level it
shows consistency. 300,000-499,999 interval makes the 41% of our Status Update
(13) posts at which organic reach of Status Updates jumps to 24.92%.
 We have only shared Links on pages which have 1 million fans and their organic reach
was always below 3.5%
5

7. Altough the sample seems insufficient at certain points, those outliers that I
have mention in parenthesis may have an another reason. For example, we
know that Facebook tries hard to make pages give ads and there isn’t anything
more natural than limiting the reaches of bigger pages to increase their budget
spent on media. But, does the Paid Reach affect Organic Reach?
We have supported 93 of 1,475 posts with ads.
At first glance, organic reach conversion is 5.72% for posts which have paid
reach and 4.55% for others. Here is the detailed chart.
Organic Reach Conversion (w/t Paid Used?)
30
25
21.56
20
15.92
15
Min
Avg
Max
10
7.07
5.44
5
4.79
3.20
4.56
4.39
0
Link
Photo
Status
Yes
Video
Link
Photo
Status
Video
No
Graph states that paid reach does increase organic reach except Status
Updates. Maybe Facebook does not care so much this type of post which have
the highest organic reach or of course our sample data can be limited since we
have only 2 Status Updates that is supported by Facebook Ads.
6

8. We have proved that Facebook values the area that page is invading on News
Feed and adjust the reach with respect to that. But, if you have a page that has
beyond average engagement. Facebook starts to suggest boost if the pages
post is over 1% engagement of engagement. We have compared our pages
organic engagement rates (comments+likes+shares per post and divided them
to organic reach) and calculated organic reach conversions for 23 pages.
Reach Conversion %
Engagement Rate vs Reach Conversion
16
14.89
14
12
10
8
6
4.88
4.16
4.16
3.15
4
2
0
0-0.99%
1-2%
2-3%
3-4%
4-5%
(12 pages)
(7 pages)
(1 pages)
(2 pages)
(1 pages)
Engagement Rate (by Organic Reach)
No. From our data, it seems that Engagement of Pages does not affect the
organic reach of posts on Facebook. Yes, above 4% of engagement it seems like
organic reach jumps to epic level but I need to mention that the single page is
also the one page which have fans below 10.000 which means that it has the
perfect combinations for boosting organic reach: Low level of fans and higher
engagement.
7

9. September 2012
For September 2012, We have analyzed 830 posts from 18 different pages –
again- from various sectors.
Total
3%
1%
5%
17%
74%
Link
Photo
Question
Status Update
Video
Back in those days, we had questions. But, we mostly share photos which is
followed by links. 753 of the 830 posts are Photos and Links. However, we did
not prefer Status Updates during the month and shared only 11 throughout the
18 pages.
8

10. Last year, our pages are slightly smaller and analyzed pages and us grew
together.
Number of Posts & Pages (w/t Fan Amounts)
Number of Posts
Number of Pages
450
7
6
400
6
350
300
4
5
388
4
4
250
205
200
3
150
100
50
2
1
1
74
1
1
1
28
30
64
41
0
0
Most of the pages from September 2012 has between 500.000-999.999 fans
and shared nearly 45% total posts on these pages which are followed by pages
that have 200.00-299.999 fans.
9

11. Now the breaking point, what was the organic reach conversion like according
to the post types in September 2012 in comparison to 2013?
In September 2012, average organic reach conversion was 14.8%. Good days...
As stated before, average organic reach conversion in September 2013 has
become only 4.63%.
Organic Reach Conversion Comparision (Sept
2012 vs 2013
4.64
Video
14.67
21.20
Status Update
11.84
Question
2013
8.42
2012
4.44
Photo
15.28
3.39
Link
14.27
0.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
20.00
25.00
%
What have you done Facebook? Really, what have you done? At 2012,
whatever you post on a page, there was a stability. If you have 100 people on
the page, you nearly guarantee that 15 people see that. At 2013, organic reach,
the main boost of pages promotion has decreased to 1/3. Does Facebook need
that much of advertising? It seems like they do.
10

12. Maybe, we are missing something, maybe we had supported more posts with
ads? Since we learned from September 2013 analysis that Facebook Ads can
boost your organic reach. Nope. We have used Paid methods in 46 of total 830
posts in September 2012.
Paid Post % vs Organic Reach Conversion
%
16
14
14.8
12
10
8
6
5.54
6.3
4.63
4
2
0
Sept 2012
Paid Post Percentage
Sept 2013
Organic Reach Conversion
So, post percentage for which used Facebook ads in September 2012 is 5.54%
and in September 2013 is 6.3%.
11

13. There is not so much need to compare Engagement Rates w/t Organic Reach
but data may tell us something. Since, I’d like to see the effect of Engagement
Rate on Organic Reach, it will be enough to check if total number of
engagement metrics (answers+comments+shares+likes)/Organic Reach and
take the percentage and analyze the rate.
Engagement Rate vs Organic Reach Conversion
Organic Reach Conversion
%
16
14.8
14
Engagement Rate
1
0.93
0.9
0.8
12
0.7
10
0.6
0.58
8
0.5
0.4
6
4.63
0.3
4
0.2
2
0.1
0
0
Sept 2012
Sept 2013
Even if the Organic Reach Conversion has dramatically fallen, our engagement
rates become higher which also proves that Facebook does not take the pages
engagement scores into consideration when calculating Organic Reach.
12

14. I tried to summarize the current state of Organic Reach and the main factors
that seem to affect I believe the most crucial metric on Facebook Pages. Here
are the few results that I add if you want to utilize the reach.
1- Don’t Trust Fan Amount: In one year, biggest downfall of organic reach
has become losing its stability. If you are seeing a post that reaches
nearly 15% of fans organically, do not trust it because your next post may
just reach up to 2% of your fans.
2- Use Facebook Ads regularly: We cannot think of a brand that chooses to
address a million fans on Facebook which do not regularly use Facebook
Ads. Paid reach has to turn into something as normal as organic reach.
3- Boost Viral Reach: Even if Organic Reach does not affect from the
Engagement Rate, there is an another reach I did not directly mention in
the report: Viral Reach. Viral Reach grows by engagement that post
gathers. Getting lots of Viral Reach is not too easy by but only trusting
organic reach however remember the first suggestions. With
combination of Organic and Paid Reach, Viral Reach can become your
secret weapon. So, if Facebook suggest you to boost your post via
Facebook Ads, just do it. Also, develop campaigns.
4- Try Different Post Types: Average Status Update on my screen takes up 2
cm space. On the other hand, average Photo takes up 10 cm space.
Photo will definitely attract more users if they see it. The analysis states
that average Status Update reaches nearly 4 times more users than any
other post type. So if your Status Update gathers some viral reach, its
size expands into 5 cm with the addition of story (your friend liked this,
your friend commented on that etc.) which can create a powerful
conversion time to time.
13

15. Head Turners of Today’s
Attention Economy
By:
Candaş Demir
http://tr.linkedin.com/in/candasdemir
candas@41-29.com
http://41-29.com
http://facebook.com/4129agency
http://twitter.com/41_29
http://vimeo.com/reel4129
http://www.behance.net/fortyone29
http://www.linkedin.com/company/41-29-
Atatürk Oto Sanayi Sitesi,
52. Sokak No: 4 ,
34337 Maslak,
Istanbul, Turkey
+90 212 245 85 30