Yes, it’s true! Facebook announced a change to the news feed algorithm that will directly affect your Facebook business page. But we don’t feel there’s a need to panic!
We’ve been hearing for many months (if not years) that changes would be coming for businesses who use Facebook as a marketing tool. Facebook has been pushing the use of video and live streaming for some time now, telling us that type of content will be seen in the news feed over others. Facebook has also been making changes that demote pages that use click bait and other tactics to get engagement that does not follow Facebook guidelines. And as they have all along, Facebook is still promoting pages who get engagement from their followers through “meaningful interactions”.
Does this mean your Facebook strategy may need to change? Likely so!
Here’s the Scoop on Facebook’s Changes
On January 11th, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook would be changing the news feed algorithm to prioritize content from “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.”
Read the full Facebook post here.
It’s important to note that Facebook book has also said that any paid ads will not be affected by the algorithm change (so far).
What should you do now?
We’ve read many articles, talked with fellow social media marketers and watched many updates since the announcement was made. Here’s a few great resources with valuable information we felt were worth sharing!
- “Those brands that look to add value to people’s lives and invest in high-quality, original content will have the most sustained success,” – Doug Baker
‘Organic reach on Facebook is dead’: Advertisers expect price hikes after Facebook’s feed purge - “One thing that’s not changing about the Facebook news feed is the ability for users to make sure they always see posts from their favorite Pages by choosing “See First” in their news feed preferences.”
What the Big Facebook News Feed Changes Mean for Brands - “Facebook is not the end-all, be-all of social. A smart social media strategy looks at the full picture and decides which communities are right for its business.”
5 Ways Marketers Can Prepare for Facebook’s News Feed Changes - “How bad is this for businesses and brands? I’m not going to sugar coat it, it’s not positive news… but not unexpected. And there is a silver lining for those businesses willing to work at it.”
5 Things Every Brand Must Do to Survive and Thrive on Facebook in 2018 - “As you develop your social media, digital, content marketing and branding strategy for 2018, you need to take audience-based approach. Inspire them. Entertain them. Connect with them in a human way. Help them achieve their goals.”
The Last Thing Your Target Customer and Audience Wants From You is More Content - Now, more than ever, creating quality, original content with unique research will be a baseline for good ROI in content marketing.
4 Social Media Marketing Strategies to Test in 2018 - And finally a great video clip from our friend Nick Westergaard sharing thoughts from the article above, that we feel sums up these changes, and how to react, really well.
This morning on the #SocialSoundBite on 800 AM KXIC I chatted about Facebook’s algorithm changes and what you can do to overcome them — complete with a few bars of Oklahoma and some Rocky impersonations. The link to the article discussed is in the comments below.
Posted by Nick Westergaard on Wednesday, January 24, 2018
As always, we’re keeping on top of the news, changes and updates. We’re implementing changes to our social media strategies and plans, which we have been preparing for and adjusting some time. We’ll make sure you know of the important things you can do to stay on top of your social media game too!
Although these changes are going into affect “soon”, we’ve already noticed the changes on our own personal news feeds. When I scroll through my personal feed, I’m seeing more content from friends and family than I have seen in a very long time. How about you? Are you noticing a change already?
