This is just a short update to confirm what I’ve suspected for months.

Remember the time when Facebook marketing “gurus” recommend you to create pretty-looking cover photos and update your Facebook Page regularly to reach more people? Well, Facebook has killed that kind of reach.

Don’t get me wrong; cover photos are still useful and visible to those who see your Page Like ads and visit your Page.

But marketers should not use cover photos in trying to reach more fans anymore. This is confirmed in the examples below:

An important implication for Facebook Marketers

If you have updated your Page’s cover photo in the last 4 to 5 months, then your reports in those months are likely to do worse than it actually is. And by “do worse”, I mean your REACH and ENGAGEMENT rates.

Why? Because updates in cover photos are considered as page posts and their performance are included in your data report.

I haven’t come across a single tool that allows you to exclude specific posts when generating a report. But you can do this yourself using the excel data export function (Post-Level). Simply remove the row involving your cover photo update.

If you are unable to do so manually for whatever reasons, you can consider doing a manual calculation. Take the report generated by the 3rd party app that you’re using, multiply it by the total number of posts you have made, deduct the cover photo update’s contribution before dividing it by the total number of posts excluding cover photo updates you have made.

Come to think of it, this is a good news for those who have reported lower reach/engagement rates, isn’t it?