The change places greater emphasis on more meaningful posts from friends, families and groups.
The New Year gave birth to significant amendments to Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm that will affect the posts of public content from businesses and organisations by placing greater emphasis on more meaningful posts from friends, families and groups.
It all stems from Facebook research that revealed the negative effects of passive consumption of online information, (ie: ‘mindlessly skimming through posts’) and how this hinders your disposition.
Will this mean a decline in Facebook’s role as a brand profile tool?
We believe Facebook is an incredible platform in helping raise the profile of your brand, while positively and progressively influencing fans to trust and keep your business or organisation in mind for when they are considering a purchase.
Your Facebook reach is the number of unique people who saw your content. A consistently healthy reach will progressively help raise awareness of your brand, which is of course great news for you!
We’re not sure if you’re aware of this, but the number of people who see your organic posts has in fact been falling for years. This is the reason why paid Facebook advertising has been an important part of Facebook strategies. With the latest change to Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm, fans will unfortunately see even fewer of your organisation’s organic posts.
Businesses and organisations that will be most adversely impacted by Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm are those with uninspired, prosaic Facebook posts that fans don’t positively interact with through ‘likes’, comments and shares. This is generally a sign that the consumer finds the content unappealing and therefore, consciously or not, has little reason to give it their time. Once again, organisations doing this will see the most substantial drop in reach.
Businesses can positively adapt to the change
Rest assured, this is a change for “good”! The marvellous Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be good for people’s wellbeing with Facebook’s research indicating passive consumption of information is bad for your mood.
Naturally, we also see the change as good for businesses and organisations that create engaging, quality content that encourages a reaction to ‘like’, comment and share.
We simply see too much uninspired and mundane content in contemporary marketing, whether that is in social media, blogs or newsletters. No wonder followers and fans are becoming disillusioned. To put it bluntly: organisations that post uninteresting content are going to pay a heavy price.
So, please don’t be that brand that sends out boring and un-newsworthy content.
Set yourself apart by posting impressively now!
5 Steps to taking advantage of this change and being one step ahead of your competitors
Here are five calls to action to help you take advantage of the change to Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm by being proactive and setting yourself apart from your competitors.
5 CALLS TO ACTION:
- Create quality and newsworthy content that fans will want to consume. Post less frequently and prioritise quality over quantity. In other words, create content that encourages conversations and comments.
- Encourage (and remind) your fans to ensure your posts appear at the top of their feed by choosing “See First” in their news feed preferences.
- Increase your ad budget. It was important before, however now it is critical! Make sure you target the right audience to ensure your advertising budget goes further. With more organisations forced to advertise, the cost of advertising is going to increase. If you haven’t installed Facebook Pixel do it now: it gives you more intelligence for targeting that will save you dollars and achieve better results.
- Make more Facebook Live videos. Videos are still favoured in Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm but live videos will be even more important.
- Invest time in Facebook Groups that operate on the basis of audience engagement.
Organisations will need to rethink their Facebook Strategies in 2018
So, to reiterate, we think the change is a positive one: the smarter than smart players will take the time to understand their audiences better and write more engaging content. Hooray!
This is also great news for our clients because we already actively do this for them! And yes, while all business pages are going to take a hit, it also provides an opportunity for those proactive players to elevate their brand above competitors who are writing unengaging content: win-win!
If you’d like some help with your Facebook or Content Strategy, book in for a coffee (our shout!) and an informal chat and we’ll tell you how Sustainable Marketing Services can help improve your digital marketing strategy today.