Now that the dust has settled, have the Facebook Algorithm changes had an impact on your business? Are you seeing lower organic reach? Fewer people engage with your content? Does it feel like you’re speaking to an empty room? Lower sales as a result?
Here’s the hard and honest truth, like it or not, those changes are here to stay! So, you can either run for the hills, or you can roll up your sleeves and get working! You’re not alone – here is my roundup of what you need to know and what you can do about it..
1. Meaningful Conversations
Facebook is now going to prioritise posts that incite “Meaningful Conversations”.. so let’s break that down.
- Meaningful: Something that resonates with your followers
- Conversation: Something that inspires people to post full sentences, to debate back and forward, and which involve other people aside to your business.
Importantly, priority to meaningful conversations will happen irrespective of where that post was made (whether on your business page, personal profile or in a group). If it’s good content, it will rise to the top. So, forget trying to cheat the system by blasting promotional posts to your personal profile. If it doesn’t invite conversation, it won’t be seen.
Cracking down on Comment Baiting
Use contests to get extra exposure for your Facebook Page (e.g. Like this post and comment to win)?
Don’t be shy, I’ve used these myself.
Well, these posts are going to see a drop in reach (unless you pay for the post to be seen and time will tell whether you’re paying higher rates for this sort of advert… I’ll test this and let you know!).
Time to rethink Facebook
This will be a challenge for many of us, but it’s time to stop thinking of Facebook as a broadcast medium (a platform to share links to content on our blogs) and start thinking it more as a Coffee Shop: A place to engage in dialogue with our customers.
2. Move away from Passive Content
I’ve been saying for years that we all need to be investing in video marketing for social media – sharing advice, insight, instructions, and entertainment. And, to a certain extent, that’s still good advice.
However, those videos also need to invite meaningful conversation… and they need to add value to your viewer’s day. Just remember, you’ve just interrupted them catching up with friends and family (or being distracted by videos of cats scared of cucumbers).
Live Video is ever-more important
Nothing new here to report aside from Facebook Live Videos get 6 times more engagement than pre-recorded videos.
Time for us all to climb out of comfort zones and go live if we want to be seen.
3. Quality not Quantity
Well, this certainly is good news.
The pressure if off to be posting constantly… the pressure is on to make the posts you do create of higher quality.
This also means that maybe some or all of your content (blogs posts, videos, shareables, downloads) need to start living natively on Facebook. Facebook wants to keep users on their platform and doesn’t really want them clicking off somewhere else.
Think about using Messenger and Chatbots to start delivering your content on the Facebook platform – you’ll be rewarded with cheaper advertising and higher reach.
4. See First
I’ll be honest, I’m not convinced many people will do this… but you can invite your most avid fans to select “See First”, so that they see your content, by default, first in their newsfeed. You must be creating content they just can’t bear to miss.
Here’s how to select pages to “See First” (hey, why don’t you test it on my Facebook Page, ha ha!)
5. Get your wallet out!
The days of free organic reach are over.
If you’re serious about being seen on Facebook (why else would you be on the platform) then you need to start paying to be seen. The good news is that the targeting is phenomenal, you can start from as little as a few £s per day, you can test the campaigns whilst live (and make tweaks and improvements as you go along) and, whilst undoubtedly the prices are going up, it’s still incredibly cost-effective.
Not sure Facebook Advertising will work for your business? It’s all in the numbers… try my FREE tool (click on the yellow bar below to start the quick test)
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