Size matters not!
Yoda dropped this truth bomb in 1980. Turns out he was talking about social media.
Our friends over at Socialinsider did some serious number crunching recently. 872,000 brand posts to be exact. The terrible news? Average reach is way way down.
Organic reach to followers on Instagram is 3.2%.
Facebook is even worse, coming in hot at 1.25%.
Hey Meta, how about for your next "On this day" post in my feed you give me back the organic reach from a few years ago?
With those sorts of awful numbers, you'd think that having a huge following would be the move. Spoiler alert: It isn't.
Small accounts are winning on both platforms when it comes to reach %.
Instagram accounts with between 1,000 and 5,000 followers reach 6.65%. Accounts with 100,000 to 1 million - 3.5%.
It's even wider on Facebook. The smallest pages get 4.35% while the big dogs are getting .5%. Yeah. .5%.
Stop acting big.
Feeds are chock full of stock photos and brand voices that read like a press release. (ick). Gotta have those Reels because some dude somewhere said that Reels are the move and the algorithm likes video.
Fun fact - Carousels actually outperformed Reels on reach. Plain images were right behind Reels by .1%. Flavor Flav said it and I'm inclined to agree - "don't believe the hype!"
Listen and be real.
Post about stuff customers are actually asking about. That question you get 5 times a week. Answer it. Not in some convoluted pile of slop buzzwords, but how you answer it when someone asks. That stuff you think is boring nobody wants to hear? Post it. Show them behind the scenes, laugh at yourself, but above all be yourself.
Talk like a human. The people following you know you. That's the advantage you have.
Next, stop building your house on rented land.
Social reach is garbage that's on its way to a black hole. Use it to start conversations then get people to somewhere you own. Maybe that's an email list, your website, or your front door. Point is, stop relying on these self-serving tech platforms that keep squeezing you. Use them, then own the audience.
Look. Small isn't the problem. Trying to copy the big guys because they're big? That's the problem.
Full transparency. I've done it wrong too and I'm a work in progress. I followed all the "social experts". I've discovered it's better to be you, than to try to be something you're not.
Be small on purpose.
