You’ve probably heard by now that Facebook’s head honcho, Mark Zuckerberg recently made an announcement that posts from brands, businesses, and publishers will be substantially diminished in the Facebook newsfeed. For many marketers, it signals an end to using Facebook as a platform to distribute content.
The fact is that YES, this algorithm change is going to reduce your reach, but it doesn’t mean the end of Facebook for brands or businesses. You’re just going to need to adjust the way that you approach how you use Facebook as a publishing platform.
If you’ve spent a lot of your time focusing on getting eyeballs on your content from Facebook, you need to start diversifying your digital strategy.
This could mean building up a following on other social media platforms, but what happens when those platforms inevitably change their algorithms the same way Facebook did? You’re back in the same boat.
This is why it’s important to focus on prioritizing owned media, as well as owning the distribution channel that media is distributed through. Blogs, your website and forums that you control are all examples of owned media. Harvard Business Review said it best:
Social media is usually treated as owned and earned. The rationale is that brands own their own social channels and audiences, then try to earn sharing and word-of-mouth. But don’t be fooled. Social media is not owned media.If social media were truly owned, brands would have control over the experience, access to their fans, and full use of the data. But the reality is quite different. Public social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter don’t enable brands to access their own data. And Facebook now charges brands to reach their own fans and followers.
So keep blogging, developing your own landing pages, and investing time into SEO efforts to get people to come to your online assets outside of Facebook and other social media channels. As marketers, we’ve gotten a little bit lazy because of the power of social media, but this is a great time to refocus and prioritize your owned media.
Adding on to this, it's also important to own the distribution channel that you reach your fans with. There’s been a lot of talk about email marketing being a dead marketing tool, but there is still enormous value in being able to capture someone’s inbox, especially if they’ve opted into one of your mailing lists. If you’ve neglected to develop your email lists (opt-in lists, NOT purchased lists), it's more important than ever to invest some time into owning this important distribution channel.
Yes, Facebook’s new algorithm change is going to make it even harder to organic reach on the newsfeed, but let’s not forget about Facebook’s business model: it’s an advertising platform. Yes, you can talk all day about Facebook’s mission to connect people across the world, but they need to monetize the platform. Facebook does this by getting brands and publishers to advertise in the newsfeed.
So this isn’t to say that the Facebook apocalypse means it's the end of times for getting your content to reach folks on the platform, but as we’ve said before, you’re going to have to pay to play.
If you’ve got great content offers to promote (eBooks, Webinars -- more “premium” content), put together a digital ad budget to promote them on Facebook.
You’ll be able to take advantage of the advanced targeting features that Facebook has and you’ll also be able to track conversions to understand how much it's costing you to acquire those leads.
We’ve got one BIG disclaimer on Facebook Ads though: they’re probably going to get more expensive. Check out this quote from WordStream’s Larry Kim:
If people are spending less time watching funny videos and consuming fake news on Facebook, it means that there's going to be less ad inventory to purchase. Furthermore, desperate brands and publishers will likely resort to spending more on Facebook ads to revive their dead organic post reach. The combination of decreased supply of ads and increased advertiser competition will most certainly yield.
Keep this in mind as you’re planning your digital ad budgets and you’re planning what content you need to promote. Since it’s getting more expensive to push paid content on Facebook, you’ve got to make sure it converts!
Facebook has always prioritized content that drives more engagement and with the recent algorithm change, creating engaging content only gets more important. Check out this excerpt from Mark Zuckerberg’s post announcing the changes:
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.For example, there are many tight-knit communities around TV shows and sports teams. We've seen people interact way more around live videos than regular ones. Some news helps start conversations on important issues. But too often today, watching video, reading news or getting a page update is just a passive experience.
While Facebook may be de-prioritizing content from businesses, brands, and media; if they do create engaging content that drives interaction from viewers/readers, you’ll still have a place in the coveted newsfeed.
Popular pieces of content like clickbait and mindless videos are not going to find their way into the newsfeed with this change. A popular solution to drive engagement has been photos or videos asking people to vote or share what they agree with. Facebook isn't interested in that either.
This means you’re going to need to experiment with tools like Facebook Live which drive people to comment more than 10x more than on regular videos.
You’re going to have to develop written content that gets people to talk to each other. All of this means that poorly thought-out content produced for quantity, instead of quality isn’t going to cut it on Facebook any longer.
Have you adjusted your publishing strategy on Facebook in light of the recent changes? What different approaches are you taking? Are you abandoning Facebook altogether? Or are you adjusting the type of content you’re publishing? Give us a shout in the comments! We’d love to hear how you’ve updated your strategy!