So, … Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement about Facebook algorithm changes coming our way and the good people of the Internet could talk of nothing else for several days. Mark began his post with “One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.”
From our perspective? We welcome changes that will improve the time we spend on Facebook. Social media is a rapidly changing industry, and we think there is so much potential on the horizon for Facebook, and for all of its users.
What do those changes mean for your Business Page?
Let’s begin at the beginning, with what the update actually is. You can find the original post here and you can check out Todd discussing the announcement on our Facebook page here. Essentially, Facebook is changing their focus from helping users find relevant content, to helping users have more meaningful social interactions.
These changes will directly affect Business Pages on Facebook, but are more a confirmation and certain implementation of an algorithm that has been tested over the past two years, than a brand new algorithm.
“The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups. As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
So, what does this actually mean?
It means it’s time to change-up the way we think about content. It’s time to ask the question of yourself; ‘how can your business foster meaningful interactions on your Facebook content’? How can YOU tell your STORY?
We need to communicate on social media the way we communicate with our friends
It’s also time to start taking social media advertising for your business more seriously. In the coming months, promotional and non-conversational content posted organically will affect your Facebook Page negatively, but the opportunities to reach exactly who you want to reach with Facebook Ads? Limitless.
And grow your email lists! Email marketing has always been important in a landscape where you don’t own your social media followers and (as you can see) these platforms can switch up the way they do things in an instant.
Video!! That old chestnut. Adam Mosseri noted in his post “live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos”, the Facebook algorithm loves video but the new changes will have us steering away from passive video. How can we all do this? We can, and should, share more of ourselves and what we do; yes that’s RIGHT – Facebook Live, Dual Facebook Live or at least more valuable videos on your Facebook page.
We need to make sure that the content we’re posting on our social channels is content that our ideal and existing customers want to see and we need to communicate on social media the way we communicate with our friends.
These changes can be hugely positive for Business Pages as Facebook are navigating a return to the original goal: a way to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter. This Newsfeed clean-up will allow for more space in the Newsfeed for genuine stories AND for effective Facebook Ads, the goal is the cull the Pages posting engagement bait on their Timelines.
Basically, we’re looking forward to more meaningful interactions and we’re excited about the challenges and opportunities the new changes pose for us, our clients and the industry.
Bring it ON.
