Viera Social Media

Business owners: Facebook is changing the way external links work in organic content, and this could have a big impact on your social media strategy.

Meta is rolling out new limits on how many external links business Pages can share organically each month. For Pages where the change is active, free accounts may be limited to just two organic posts or comments containing external links per month.

Want to share more? Meta is tying increased link allowances to its new paid Meta One business subscription tiers.

Important: this does not mean you can no longer send people to your website, reservation page, registration page or other destination through Facebook advertising.

And that's where I think businesses need to start looking at Facebook a little differently.

ORGANIC CONTENT = BUILD THE COMMUNITY

Your organic strategy should give people a reason to stay, watch, follow and engage.

Think:
• entertaining content
• educational content
• Reels and video
• behind-the-scenes content
• useful information
• conversations with your community
• content that demonstrates your expertise

Instead of every post saying, “Click this link,” the post itself needs to provide value.

PAID CONTENT = DRIVE THE ACTION

When you have a specific goal: book an appointment, make a reservation, register for an event, shop a product or visit a landing page, hat's where a targeted Meta ad can come into play.

The ad can still send people directly to your destination through its call-to-action button.

The change isn't active on every Page yet, and Meta's rollout and availability vary by account, so don't panic if you're still posting links normally.

But I wouldn't ignore this either.

For years, businesses have treated Facebook as a place to post a link and send people somewhere else.

Meta is giving us another pretty strong signal that the future of organic social is creating content people actually want to consume on the platform.

Build the audience organically.
Build the relationship organically.
When you need to drive a specific action, be much more intentional about how you do it.

That's a strategy worth preparing for now, whether the link limit has reached your Page yet or not.

A day we will never forget. I was in 9th grade, abroad in Ireland on September 11, 2001. We were on a Double Decker Red Bus when someone said, "Are you American? We are so sorry!" We were very confused and believed we were talking to crazy people because, what in the world were they talking about. Airplanes were crashing into buildings in New York City?

But then my dad walked into a pub to check the news, and I will never forget the look on his face when he walked out and the whole world changed.

Today, we pause and remember the lives lost and the heroes who bravely served our country that day. We will never forget! 🇺🇲

Squeal or No Squeal Episode 1 Welcome to Squeal or No Squeal, Episode 1, a roofing trivia game sh...

Local word of mouth has gone digital.

That may be one of the most important things small business owners need to understand about social media.

People are still asking their friends, family and neighbors where to eat, who to hire, what business to trust and where to spend their money.

The difference is that a lot of those conversations are now happening online.

According to Pew Research Center, 73% of Americans often or sometimes get local news and information from friends, family and neighbors.

And social media is becoming a bigger part of how that information travels.

Among people who get local information from friends, family and neighbors, 25% now say social media is their primary way of receiving it, compared with 17% in 2018.

Community groups are growing in importance too.

In 2018, 38% of Americans said they sometimes got local information from online forums such as community Facebook groups or Nextdoor.

By 2024, that number had grown to 52%.

That should matter to every local business.

Because the customer journey often looks something like this:

Someone sees your name recommended in a Facebook group.

Then they Google your business.

They read a few reviews.

They look at your Facebook or Instagram page.

They watch a video.

They visit your website.

Maybe they follow you.

And then, days or weeks later, they finally call, visit or make a purchase.

BrightLocal's 2026 consumer research supports this.

84% of consumers searched for a local business online within the previous three months, and 75% used more than one channel during that search.

That last number is especially important.

Your customer is not necessarily making a decision based on one Facebook post, one Google review or one Instagram Reel.

They are collecting information.

Each interaction helps answer another question.

Is this business legitimate?

Do people recommend them?

Do I like what I see?

Do they seem knowledgeable?

Are they active?

Do they respond to customers?

Do I trust them enough to spend my money with them?

This is why measuring social media only by likes can give small business owners a very incomplete picture.

A post may only receive 30 likes and still introduce hundreds or thousands of people to your business.

A customer may never like a single post and still see your content several times before calling.

Someone may discover you through a community recommendation, check your social media for credibility and then convert through Google.

None of those individual platforms deserve all the credit.

They worked together.

For a local business, your social media should not exist in a vacuum.

It should support your reviews.

Your reviews should support your reputation.

Your website should support what people saw on social media.

Your business should show up consistently when someone goes looking for more information.

And your content should give people something worth remembering, sharing or recommending.

That is the bigger opportunity.

We are not just creating posts.

We are creating the digital version of:

“Oh, I know someone you should call.”

And for a small business, that kind of local recognition and trust can be far more valuable than a like count.

Sources: Pew Research Center and BrightLocal 2026 Consumer Search Behavior research.

Your follower count is not the same thing as your reach.

And understanding the difference can completely change how you judge whether your social media is actually working.

Meta essentially distributes your content to two different types of audiences:

Connected reach is people who already follow your business.

Unconnected reach is people who do not follow your business yet, but Meta decides may be interested in your content.

That second group is incredibly important.

Instagram and Facebook are no longer simply showing your posts to your followers in chronological order. Their recommendation systems are constantly trying to match content with people who are most likely to care about it.

So Meta is not only asking:

“Does this person follow this business?”

It is also looking at things like:

“Does this person regularly engage with this type of content?”

“Have they shown interest in this topic before?”

“Are people with similar interests watching or sharing this content?”

“Does this post seem relevant enough to recommend?”

If the answer is yes, your post may be shown to that person even though they have never heard of your business before.

That is unconnected reach.

And that is one of the reasons follower count alone is such an incomplete way to measure social media success.

Let’s say Business A has 10,000 followers.

They publish a post that reaches 1,500 people.

Business B has only 3,000 followers.

They publish a Reel that reaches 12,000 people, with most of those views coming from people who do not follow the business.

Which business had the stronger awareness opportunity?

Probably Business B.

This is also why I encourage business owners not to judge every piece of content by likes.

A post with 200 likes is not automatically more successful than one with 70 likes.

The post with 70 likes may have:

Reached thousands more people

Reached significantly more non followers

Generated more watch time

Been shared more often

Sent more people to the business profile

Generated website visits

Created new followers

Introduced the company to an entirely new audience

Those numbers tell us much more about what the content actually accomplished.

Meta has also explained that watch time, likes and sends or shares can all help its systems determine whether content is worth continuing to distribute.

Generally, likes can be especially useful for understanding how your existing community responds to content.

Shares and sends can be particularly powerful for discovery because they signal that someone thought the content was interesting enough to pass along to another person.

Watch time matters because if people stop scrolling and actually consume the content, that gives Meta another signal that the post may be worth showing to more people.

This is why I prefer to look at social media performance as a funnel instead of a popularity contest.

For an awareness campaign, I want to know things like:

How many people did we reach?

How many were followers versus non followers?

How much of our reach came from people who did not already know us?

Did people actually watch the video?

Did they share it?

Did they visit the profile?

Did they follow after seeing it?

Did they visit the website or take another action?

Likes and comments still matter.

Followers still matter.

They are just pieces of a much larger picture.

Your followers represent the community you have already built.

Your reach tells us whether your content is actually being distributed.

And your unconnected reach tells us how effectively your content is introducing your business to people outside of that existing community.

For most small businesses trying to grow awareness, that last number can be incredibly valuable.

So the next time you post something and think,

“It only got 40 likes.”

Before deciding it failed, look deeper.

You may discover that the post quietly introduced your business to thousands of people who had never seen you before.

And that is exactly what awareness marketing is supposed to do.

Follower count matters, but it should not be the only number we use to judge whether a social media campaign is working.

For awareness campaigns especially, I look much more closely at reach, views/impressions, engagement, shares, and how much of that reach is coming from people who do not already follow the account.

Why? Because platforms like Instagram are no longer built to show content only to your followers. Instagram actively recommends content to people who do not follow an account, which means follower count represents your existing audience size, but it does not tell you how many people actually saw a post.

So when I am evaluating an awareness campaign, I am not just asking:

How many followers did we gain?

I am asking:

How many people did we reach?
How many times was the content viewed?
How much engagement did it generate?
How many new people were introduced to the brand?
How much of our reach came from non-followers?

That distinction matters.

A post can introduce thousands of new people to a business without every one of those people immediately clicking “follow.” That does not mean the content failed. If the goal was awareness, the content still accomplished something very valuable: it put the brand in front of a larger audience and moved more people into the top of the marketing funnel.

There is also a difference between brand awareness and audience growth.

Follower growth is a useful long-term metric, but it is only one piece of the picture. Reach, views, engagement and non-follower distribution tell us much more about how an individual post or campaign is actually performing.

Here are some great resources that explain this further:

💡Instagram distinguishes between follower and non-follower distribution.
Instagram leadership has discussed “connected reach,” meaning people who already follow an account, and “unconnected reach,” meaning people who do not. Shares and sends are also important signals for extending content to new audiences.

Instagram Shares Algorithm Insights:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagram-shares-algorithm-insights-2025/738034/

💡Meta specifically builds tools around reaching non-followers.
Instagram’s Trial Reels feature allows creators to show content to non-followers first to see how it performs with a new audience.

Meta: Test Content With Non-Followers Using Trial Reels
https://about.fb.com/news/2024/12/trial-reels-try-content-non-followers-first-see-what-perfoms-best/

Meta also reported that among creators who began posting Reels more frequently after trying Trial Reels, 80% saw an increase in reach from non-followers.

Meta: Inspiring Creativity That Brings People Together
https://about.fb.com/news/2025/06/inspiring-creativity-that-brings-people-together/

💡Awareness and audience growth are different marketing objectives.
Sprout Social identifies reach and impressions as key brand awareness metrics, while follower growth falls under audience growth.

Sprout Social: Social Media Marketing Strategy
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/

Sprout Social: Reach vs. Impressions vs. Engagement
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/reach-vs-impressions/

💡Follower count represents potential audience, not actual content performance.
Buffer recommends evaluating follower growth alongside reach, engagement and conversions instead of treating follower count as a stand-alone measurement of success.

Buffer: Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking
https://buffer.com/resources/social-media-metrics/

💡Follower vs. non-follower reach is itself an important performance indicator.
Hootsuite recommends looking at how much reach comes from followers compared with non-followers. Strong non-follower reach can indicate that content is being shared or receiving additional algorithmic distribution.

Hootsuite: Social Media Measurement
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-measurement/

The biggest takeaway:

💡Follower count tells us how many people have chosen to follow an account. Reach, views and engagement tell us what the content is actually accomplishing.

For awareness campaigns, that is the difference between simply looking at an audience number and actually measuring performance.