How to Adjust to Facebook’s Major Changes

 

On Friday, January 12th, Mark Zuckerberg made the following announcement:

“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.”

In this article, we are going to help you break down what this means, and how to adjust your business Facebook posts accordingly.

1.) Why We Think this Update is Positive

Yes, this is a major change, but the motive is good. Facebook has made the observation that user’s news feeds are becoming too bogged down with posts from businesses and news publishers, and it’s crowding out more meaningful connections with your actual friends. Would you agree?

Facebook understands this change may mean people spend less time on Facebook now, but they are looking for quality over quantity and we applaud their effort!

2.) How this Update will Affect the Facebook Feed

Based on experts that we follow, it is obvious that posts from businesses and brand pages will almost completely go away from the news feed. Before overreacting, ask yourself, has reach and engagement with your posts gone down significantly? Based on our analytics, we have reason to believe these changes have actually been taking place over the last 6 months or so.

So, which posts do you see performing well? That brings us to our next point.

3.) How to Adjust to Facebook’s News Feed Changes 

Based on our client’s analytics, we see posts that are interesting and engaging are the ones that skyrocket in reach. Posts that are performing poorly? Those offering a basic discount, wishing you happy holidays, or sharing a quote graphic.

Take for example the results from a recent post for one of our clients that offered free services to those affected by the Montecito mudslides, compared to a “fun fact” posted the day before.

  • The post about “services for those affected by the mudslides” had 650% more reach and 9000% more shares than the “fun fact”.

What can we learn from this?

  1. Facebook is rewarding posts that offer viewers value.
  2. Facebook is rewarding posts that are engaging.
  3. Facebook is rewarding posts that are related to the community.

How can you adjust your posts?

  1. Post less often. Posting several times a day, or even every day, when you have nothing of real value to share, will put you on a fast track to no getting no eyes on your posts.
  2. Stop thinking of Facebook as a platform to broadcast your business, and instead look at it as a platform for sharing something meaningful. Post with the motive to give more than you take.
  3. Ask yourself if what you are about to post is worthy of conversation. Long comments are going to be rewarded above anything else moving forward. *BUT* here is a major insider tip for you! Do not ask your viewers to “post, like, share or tag”. They should be motivated to do so organically. We have an inside track to a private group where Facebook Vice President of News Feed, Adam Mosseri, posted that Facebook will be scanning for that language (aka click bait) and penalizing posts accordingly.

4.) How Does this Affect Facebook Ads

We think the effect is very positive for Facebook Ads! Ideally, this news feed change will mean people will want to go back to spending more time on Facebook. Their time on the platform will be more meaningful because their feeds will be full of posts and conversations from their friends and not click bait from businesses. What an amazing platform to advertise your business and target people that are the perfect customer!

Want to set up an effective and strategic Facebook Ad campaign? Contact us today – online@epicadgroup.com