Organic Reach Of Facebook Videos: How To Optimize It In 2023?

Facebook has recently announced changes in how it chooses which videos will get the best organic reach on its social network. Here is a summary of good practices and factors that impact the natural reach of shared videos on Facebook.

CRITERIA THAT IMPACT THE ORGANIC REACH OF FACEBOOK VIDEOS

On Facebook, many factors have an impact on the organic reach of videos and more specifically, where they are displayed, how and when they are put forward.

In this section, we will offer you asummary of the main factors that positively or negatively impact the organic reach of videos shared on Facebook:

• The retention of videos (the percentage of completion of the video, its ability to keep captive and retain the user until the end). The closer it is to 100%, the better.
• The average viewing time of the video: it must be at least one minute otherwise Facebook may consider the videos as low quality.
• The number of comments generated by the video.
• The number of shares in the video.
• The number of views of the video.
• The authenticity of the video.
• The number of reactions (likes, wow, love, …) caused by the video.
• The velocity of acquisition reactions, shares, comments and views of the video: the more a video makes the buzz quickly, the more likely it is to be put forward naturally by Facebook.
• Loyalty of video players: The percentage of views from users who have already viewed previous videos shared by the same account. The more important it is, the more it is a sign of quality for Facebook.
• The number of automatic reads VS the number of clickers on the “Play” / “Play” button: a significant number of clicks on the “Play” button is an interesting signal for Facebook.
• The length of the video published: Facebook will favor long formats in short formats. A minimum of 3 minutes is recommended.
• The number of new subscribers after viewing the video: the more videos transform Internet users into a fan, the more it is a sign of quality for Facebook.
• The seniority, “authority” and history of the page that shares the video.
• The number of likes on the page that shares the video.

Of course, Facebook does not rely solely on these criteria to determine whether a video should have a significant or weak organic reach, but these are the most important in 2019.

THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS FOR ACHIEVING AN INTERESTING ORGANIC REACH

“Authentic, enduring and memorable”, thisis how Facebook would like each video broadcast on its social network to be in 2019.

For Facebook, the 3 factors that will have more and more impact in the organic promotion of videos are:

1. The loyalty of readers and their intention to watch the videos of an account, a group or a page: the more the users who watch the videos are faithful and look for the latter, more Facebook will boost the organic reach of these videos.
2. The quality of the videos and the duration of viewing: the more the videos are seen in their entirety, the more Facebook considers them to be of quality. For videos of at least 3 minutes, the viewing time should not be less than 1 minute. The more will be the better.
3. Originality and authenticity: Facebook limits since 2018 the scope of non-original videos, duplicated or only slightly modified. This limitation will be accentuated in 2019 and in the years to come to promote the highlighting of unique content with higher added value.

BAD PRACTICES TO AVOID THAT CAN NEGATIVELY AFFECT THE ORGANIC REACH OF FACEBOOK VIDEOS

If there are many good practices that can help you achieve better results naturally with your videos, there are as always practices to avoid so as not to risk negatively impact the visibility of your content.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of bad practices that can drop your organic visibility if Facebook detects them:

1. Republish without modification videos already shared by others on Facebook after downloading them for free online
2. Republish videos from other accounts with some minor changes and improvements after downloading them
3. Make clickbait by intentionally omitting information from the description of the publication sharing the video. Facebook has developed dedicated algorithms to detect and penalize this type of publications.
4. Practicing engagement bait by voluntarily encouraging users to tag, react, comment or share a publication. This practice is contrary to Facebook’s best practices and is also increasingly easily detectable by its algorithms.
5. Share videos that look more like animated slideshows than videos. Facebook does not like videos that use too many animated images, he prefers to highlight real videos.
6. Use remarketing / likes and paid comments to artificially boost the popularity of a video. Facebook also knows how to detect such practices when they are performed by accounts that often have nothing to do with video.

Now that you know almost everything about good and bad practices to get the best possible organic reach on your videos, you know what you have to do: test yourself by creating and sharing quality video content.