Social networks are definitely one of the effective tools for business promotion. But for them to work 100%, you need to at least build a proper SMM strategy: analyze competitors, set KPIs, draw up a content plan, draw an individual design, fill out a description, create a menu, etc. But what's the point if no one reads your posts? Therefore, in this article we will tell you how to increase the reach of your target audience. Let's take the social network VKontakte as an example.
I don’t think it’s worth examining the definition of “coverage” in detail. In short, this is the number of users who viewed your post. But don’t confuse the concept of views and reach.
Views are the number of times your post has been viewed. For example, a user can see the same post 5 times.
Let's get back to coverage. It comes in two types:
- organic;
- advertising.
You can find out how much coverage your posts have in the community statistics in the “Reach” tab. There will be a graph showing how many users viewed the posts and how exactly they did it:
Let's look at each type in more detail.
How to see the viral reach of VK
Go to your dashboard and select Statistics, then the Reach tab. Here are graphs showing subscriber reach, total reach, and viral reach.
Can choose:
- Time period - by days, weeks and months.
- Views from smartphones or computers.
- Location (country and city).
What is reach on Facebook?
The reach of publications on Facebook is all people who have seen any of the publications in the social network feed at least once. The metric is approximate, but Facebook has a huge advantage: you can see how your competitors are doing.
You can evaluate how effective your page is compared to similar ones
To view the main indicators of the group, just click on the “Statistics” button in the left block, and then go to the “Overview” column. There are 10 metrics open here, but we are only interested in two now: publication coverage and story coverage.
General statistics on Facebook
All statistics are shown as a percentage of the previous week or month. Data can be downloaded in Excel format.
Facebook itself says that coverage is calculated approximately. Coverages are divided into:
- Organic reach is the number of people who saw publications without advertising.
- Paid reach - the number of people who saw the publication using advertising.
- Viral – it takes into account how many people reached interacted with the page: they liked it, subscribed, reposted, and so on.
- Non-viral - does not take into account how many people reached interacted with the page: they liked it, subscribed, reposted, and so on.
The number of coverages for any period can be viewed in detail in the “Coverage” item on the Page statistics page.
Item with coverage in the Facebook menu
All metrics have a separate statistics page on Facebook. For example, if you want to see the number of page views, actions, likes and stories - all this is in separate tabs.
Regarding users on Facebook, the situation is the same as on Instagram. You can see what time and when your subscribers go to the social network and spend time on it, like them, and read posts. Reach is influenced by many factors. In addition to the quality of the content, it is also important how they interact with it and how it interacts with similar posts from competitors. The time of day and platform are also taken into account: smartphone or computer.
In DataFan you can view coverage statistics for any desired period on a dynamic dashboard
How to increase your VKontakte reach
To gain virality, create original content. In each of your posts, tag a topic so that interested people can see them. This way you will get reposts and coverage. Let's take a closer look at several methods.
Developing the habit of liking
In order for social network users to like your posts, you need the following:
- Useful posts.
Subscribers often like important posts to save them as bookmarks.
- Follow the community's theme.
Posts should intersect with the topic of the community so as not to lead to a wave of unsubscribes.
- Like yourself.
There are users who are embarrassed to like a post first. Therefore, immediately after sending the publication, check in on it, ask your friends and acquaintances to leave hearts.
- Create polls on post.
Most VK users automatically click on polls displayed in the feed and write comments under them.
We get more comments
To leave comments under your posts:
- Ask a question.
Subscribers rarely comment on posts on their own; they need a push. Therefore, call for commenting in the text of the post itself, try and provoke a discussion.
- Provoke.
To increase your reach, you can create a post on a provocative topic. However, it is worth remembering that it is not recommended to touch on the topic of politics and religion.
- Engage.
Make engaging and entertaining content. For motivation, you can promise nice gifts for participating in the drawing.
Finding the right time
Content can be published at any time, even at night, the main thing is regularity.
There are many services that can help you find out the best time to post. The Engagement tab shows you when people view your posts. Effectively publish posts during the most active times.
We write more posts
The more posts, the greater the reach. VKontakte has a limit on the daily number of posts. You are allowed to send no more than 50 posts per day, but this limit is used only by gaming groups. For commercial communities, 5-7 posts a day are enough to interest the audience.
Analytics services will help you analyze content and understand what exactly your subscribers are interested in.
We write articles
Articles are a special type of publication on VK. To read the text, you need to click. VK algorithms consider publications in this form more loyal and more actively promote them in the smart feed. With a large number of clicks on an article, the viral reach of the community increases.
Adding a video
Video content gets the most coverage. Upload the video to the community’s “Videos” and then publish a post. To prevent your feed from reducing its reach, do not use a link from a third-party group.
Naturally increasing viral reach
Openly encouraging users to share your posts with friends is prohibited. But you can invite them to repost entries on the wall during a competition with impressive prizes.
Advertising reach
Statistics for this type of coverage will be displayed if the community launched either tartered advertising or seeded other public pages.
Targeted advertising
It has two formats: teaser advertising on the left under the menu and advertising in the news feed with a note. Let's look at each type in more detail.
- Newsline
The ad post in the feed will look like this:
Such posts are disguised as native publications; the only thing that distinguishes them from regular news is the “Advertising Post” tag. In the VKontakte advertising account there are several types of posts that can be used in the feed: carousel, universal post and post with a button.
To decide which type of post to choose, first choose a goal. If you have a lot of products, then a carousel is ideal. And if you want users to join the community, then an entry with a button will suit you.
But choosing a format is only half the battle. In order for advertising to work well, we recommend paying more attention to the display settings, searching for your target audience and the design of the ads themselves. By the way, you can read about advertisements here.
- Teaser advertising
Consists of a small image and one sentence (depending on the selected ad format). In the VKontakte interface, the ad looks like this:
Teaser advertising can serve to promote a community, advertise a website, and promote applications. Before you start advertising, look at what types of devices (mobile phone or desktop version) your subscribers use. The fact is that teaser advertising is not shown on mobile phones.
A teaser will cost less than advertising in the news feed. But it also works worse in terms of efficiency. In any case, we recommend testing both formats.
Crops in other communities
They can be done either through the VKontakte advertising account - the Market Platform tool, or directly negotiate with group administrators.
The point is that you place your advertising post within other communities. The only thing that will distinguish your post from the content of the selected community is the “Advertising” mark. In an example it looks like this:
When choosing a platform for publication, we recommend focusing on several parameters:
- community theme – must be suitable for your business;
- audience reach;
- audience activity.
You can also track current requests for placement and statistics in your advertising account. If you work directly with communities, then you need to track all the information yourself:
The effectiveness of sowing will directly depend on the chosen site and topic. Therefore, test and analyze all data.
Alternative Methods to Increase Reach
One of the ways to increase coverage is cheating, but it is not recommended to resort to it. It will hardly lead to success, but it will lead to account blocking.
The effect of cheating is temporary, because soon uninterested users will begin to unsubscribe, and therefore the algorithms will mark your content as uninteresting.
Another alternative method is to order a promotion. Run targeted advertising for your post in your feed or post it in other communities.
What is coverage in Odnoklassniki
Reach in Odnoklassniki works according to the same principles as in other social networks. A unique user who saw the publication in OK at least once is taken into account.
The coverage can be viewed in general on the page - in the “Statistics” menu and the first “Review” tab. For more detailed information you will have to delve into the menu.
Thus, data on the composition of coverage is located in the “Users” tab, where there are the items “Reach” and “Reach by Platform”. The date for collection can be set to any date from the moment the page appears. This takes into account coverage both among group members and among those who were not subscribed.
Reach on platforms is also divided into two types: computer and phone
Also in another item “Audience” you can see the coverage among men and women as a percentage according to their age.
To view detailed statistics for each post, you can go to the “Publications” tab, where a list of all posts will appear.
If you hover your mouse over the blue bar, you can see detailed statistics on reach, engagement and feedback (likes, reposts)
Odnoklassniki encourages authors of high-quality content - it ends up in the recommendation feed and receives additional coverage. The recommendation feed itself works according to a smart algorithm and recommends posts to friends of friends, takes into account the first reaction to the post (feedback) and gives more coverage to original content.
