Is the Facebook Newsfeed algorithm giving you a nightmare? I hope you have noticed a significant decline in your Facebook page reach,video watch time etc?
Most of us have but the question is how to outsmart the update and stay “slaying” on Facebook. But before we dive into the escape plan, lets start by looking at what the algorithm is all about.
According to Facebook,they iterated that their platform was built to bring people closer together and build relationships. To do this, they seek to connect people to meaningful posts from their friends and family in News Feed.What this means is that people now have more opportunities to interact with the people they care about.
So with this update Facebook is prioritizing posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people.
That said, Facebook now predicts which posts one might want to interact with as well as their friends so yo’ll find these will be shown higher in the feed.
And as a result,posts from business pages will be shown less unless the posts are in line with the guideline- ability to generate conversations between people. A good example to deal with this situation is to strategically use Facebook live videos,these will do well in this regard.
However, against this background ,there are reasons to be excited about too.
Do you agree with me that this algorithm change could be a very exciting development in the world of social media. Why? It’s challenging businesses and brands to getting rid of pathetic gimmicks/engagement tactics and bringing back the essence of real human connections.
Now here are a few important things to do as a brand…
Stop engagement bait and start creating real engagement
Posts like “Tag a friend …” Facebook News Algorithm update will be demoting these posts in the news feed, and yes, they have super smart bots that scan posts for key engagement bait words, so this isn’t a joke. So rather have fans driven to willfully tag or comment on your post than asking them to do so.
Put your focus on creating only that content which speaks to your audience.Therefore, instead of creating content, for your brand , that people interact with, you now need to start creating content, for the people and i tell you, that will spark enough emotion to generate a tag,comment or share.
In addition ,lets say you now want to create content for the people,it requires you to have a deeper understanding of your audience and you may need to look into things like
- their challenges
- their motivations
- What they love to interact with
- What they care about
Its time to activate your brand’s die hard advocates
I want you to take this,employee advocacy has never been more relevant than it is today. Given that Facebook is prioritizing content from friends and family over your business, this is the perfect time to start your employee advocacy program or tweak it if you already have one.
Assuming your Facebook page’s reach is probably already limited by the number of fans you have. And yet again you have to deal with this algorithm dilemma , the number of people that see your content is obviously even more worrying.
So what do you do?Start encouraging your team to share your content with their networks on Facebook. Believe me,this will instantly amplify your reach.
Not only that, but since the posts are coming from friends and family instead of your brand, people will be more likely to actually read it.
Over to you
As we can all see, the norms are changing each day and its also quite an exciting time in the world of Facebook.
I personally have no doubt that the recent changes to the Facebook algorithm are a good thing for both users and brands in the long run.
Now its probably a perfect time to reflect on your Facebook strategy and work on developing meaningful content and an engaged community.As you may not find this easy,we can assist you continue to find success with your Page.
I’d love to hear any thoughts or questions you might have in the comments section.