.png?width=1080&height=1080&name=Untitled%20design%20(46).png)
According to the Vice President of Newsfeed, Adam Mosseri, and later confirmed by CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook will "prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people and prioritize posts from friends and family over public content." Could this serve as the final nail in the coffin for businesses and brands on Facebook?
-2.png?width=300&name=Untitled%20design%20(6)-2.png)
Facebook has been wildly successful because of its attention to user experience. While Facebook's advertising platform has created enormous amounts of opportunity for businesses, their primary focus has always been on their community. This algorithm change will favor content from family and friends, in order to provide more relevant material to users as they scroll through newsfeeds. In addition, posts that encourage meaningful interactions will be rewarded with views. This is all in an attempt to improve the platform for its community. Although it may sound like a hard knock for all businesses on the platform, it's not as detrimental as it appears.
So, what are the most important takeaways from this algorithm change that you need in order for your business to adjust your social strategy to stay ahead of the changes?
Now more than ever, a business must truly understand their audience. What interests them? What motivates them? What leads them to action? Facebook is a community that encourages interaction and conversation. If your marketing tactic has only been to post often about your business, this change will be devastating for your brand. Focus on the quality of your content rather than the quantity. By providing valuable and relevant information to your followers that encourages a continued conversation, not only will you be building a stronger and more reliable brand, but you will be generating additional attention to your posts.
Understanding your audience is only the start to creating a strong social content strategy. What conversations can your brand facilitate? Social media gives brands the opportunity to create a community with users who share similar interests. Hosting these conversations highlights brands as thought leaders in their respective industries and builds a stronger rapport with their audience. Find out more about Why Should Companies Have Conversations.
If you haven't already started advertising on Facebook and Instagram, now is the time to begin developing advertising campaigns. Advertising on social media not only gives you the power to laser focus your messaging based on demographics, interests, and online behaviors but also allows you to do so at a very affordable cost. Unlike other media buys that are unachievable for many businesses, social advertising allows you to conserve your advertising budget for the audience that is most likely to convert.
And although Facebook has not directly reported that advertising prices will rise due to the algorithm change, we do expect the pricing to become more competitive simply because of the demand for ad space across the platform.
The video continues to be encouraged as a way to distribute content with over 45% of people watching more than an hour of video content on Facebook and YouTube per week.
As video climbed in popularity, Facebook added features such as muted videos with captions and number of people watching to prioritize videos in users' newsfeeds. The most popular types of videos are live videos, which are viewed 3x more than recorded videos. Aligning with the goal of promoting meaningful interactions, live videos are produced in real-time, making the content more conversation-based with the raw footage and the ability to engage with viewers during the recording.
According to Facebook, roughly 1 billion people use groups every month to engage with other users. Thanks to the launch of Groups for Pages during the summer of 2017, Pages can make and now be linked to groups. Groups add an extra layer to authenticity and encourage a deeper level of interaction in a smaller and more connected community. Users also find groups attractive because of their exclusivity. Luckily for businesses, Groups will not be affected by the Facebook algorithm change.
The rise of influencers is only becoming increasingly desirable to businesses. Understanding that Facebook will highlight friends and families' posts over brands, it is essential that businesses tap into one of their most transparent forms of marketing—referrals through their customers.
When a business tells you they're great, it means very little, but when friends, family, and people you trust tell you a business is great, you hold their opinion to a higher standard. It serves as an extra layer of credibility for a review. By tapping into your current customer base and aligned influencers, you are not only able to reach a new and qualified audience, but build stronger relationships with people who speak highly of your brand.
Social media isn't so much a platform to advertise on, but rather the new way we, as businesses, must interact with our audience. By focusing on relationships and conversations, you are creating relevant and engaging content instead of screaming sales pitches, as what was traditionally done. While the changes to the Facebook algorithm present businesses with a new challenge, it will require a business to double down on their content strategy to result in stronger relationships with their customers. As Facebook begins to filter out the noise, brands that invest in their strategy will continue to succeed on the platform.
