At Jobcast we have a pretty good Facebook following for a b2b business of our size.

According to Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature, only 1 out of our 6 main competitors’ Pages has more Likes than ours. Even though this competitor is winning the war for Page likes, when it comes to engagement our Page outranks them by about 20%.

But, of course, we would still like to see our Page grow and reach more potential users.

I think it’s safe to assume that you want the same for your company’s Facebook Page, especially if you are using Facebook for social recruiting.

More Page Likes and better engagement means reaching and connecting with more job seekers!

The problem with this is that Facebook’s organic reach has been on the decline, so if you aren’t paying for Facebook Ads it is hard to get your content seen.

You may be wondering how Facebook decides who sees what?

A proprietary algorithm decides.

This answer may be less than satisfying but, honestly, no one but the team at Facebook knows exactly how the social network decides what gets seen and what doesn’t.

What we do know is:

• Content with photos and video is more likely to get seen as Facebook prioritizes these posts.

• Newer posts are prioritized over older posts.

• The more a user interacts with your Page the more likely Facebook is to share your content with them.

• That Facebook hides posts from users if they have marked them as spam or not interesting.

• The device a user accesses Facebook influences what content they are show.

This is only part of the story and it doesn’t look like Facebook will be sharing the rest of it anytime soon!

Here’s and article by Sproutsocial that explains how Facebook ranks posts in more detail.

Full story or not, there are still a few proven ways to increase your Facebook reach and boost engagement!

Photos and Video

Facebook gives more weight to posts that include visual content such as photos and videos.

Use this to your advantage and share more visual content.

Recruiting videos are perfect for this because they also boost application rates!

Photos from staff parties, team-building exercises, and employees are excellent too.

If you don’t have a lot of original content to share, then you can post interesting YouTube videos, infographics, and even memes to your Page.

Here are 5 great tools for making visual social media content.

Twitter & Email

Promote Your Facebook Page using Twitter and Email.

Add a link to your Facebook Page in your email signature accompanied by a call to action that encourages your connections to Like your Page.

Then do the same with Twitter by sending out Tweets with a Link to Your Facebook Page and a similar call to action.

This is a great way to spread the word about your Facebook Page.

Join Groups

Find and join popular Facebook groups related to your field and use these groups to reach more Facebook users who are interested in companies like yours.

When you first join one of these groups it is important to post more than just selfish content (such as job ads and requests for Likes.)

Instead, start by posing a question or sharing a really interesting article to the group Timeline.

If you really want to make the other group members like you, then respond positively to the content that they have shared and engage them in dialogue.

People love getting this kind of recognition!

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot join groups or comment on groups as your Page so you will have to do this from your personal account.

Get Help

Your coworkers and staff are one of the best assets at your disposal for growing your Facebook reach.

Ask them to help by sharing the content you post and encouraging them to ask their Facebook connections to Like your Page.

Your current team’s connections are very similar to them demographically speaking.  It is quite likely that they met at university or even at a past job and, as such, they have a similar skill set to your current employee/coworker and are an excellent group to target.

Making this both a great way to boost your Facebook Page reach and to get your employer brand noticed by a large pool of potential candidates!

Facebook Ads

If you have the budget for it, then Facebook Ads are the most effective way of boosting your reach.

Facebook Ads help you to specifically target the type of users that you want to connect with. This means that using FB Ads you will not only improve the size of your Page’s reach, but also the quality.

Better quality reach means that your content is getting seen by the people that you want to apply for your jobs.

When it comes to social recruiting, it is always better to make one high quality connection with a potential candidate than 10 connections with people who have little interest in what your company has to offer!

Learn how to use Facebook Ads for social recruiting in this white paper.

If you have any tips for boosting Facebook reach please share them in the comments!