Facebook recently announced major changes to the news feed that will impact small business, brands and publishers.
The Facebook news feed changes are meant to bring more engaging content to users’ news feeds. Relevant information from friends and family will rank higher than brand content. In order to get any organic (or non-paid) reach for your business or brand posts, you will need to create content that will generate genuine engagement.
In a post from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he states:
“Because space in News Feed is limited, showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.
As we make these updates, Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it. Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect.”
There are some things businesses and brands can do to maintain a presence in the Facebook news feed…
1. Create engaging content
You will have to work a bit harder and put out content that will resonate with your intended audience. Don’t just push out posts, create content that pulls the audience in and gets them to engage with you and your business. Show the personality of your business or brand.Organic reach can only be achieved if the posts you are putting out drive engagement.
2. Use the Facebook Advertising Platform
The pay-to-play model on Facebook has long been available to businesses and brands. The Facebook advertising platform is second to none for social media marketing. It is specifically good for small local based businesses because of its powerful targeting options. Boosting posts and paid advertising is going to give you the best reach on Facebook as a business or brand.
3. Use Live Video
Live video on Facebook can drive more conversation and engagement than archived video. More interaction on your live video will help increase organic reach.
There are always going to be changes to the platforms, be ready by having a solid website.
You need to keep in mind that your website is your home base on the internet and the one place where you make the rules. Facebook and other social media platforms are borrowed spaces. They can change the rules at any time (as you recently saw) and you have no choice but to shift with the changes.
Your website should have all your content and be the center of your digital marketing strategy. Driving traffic to your site is an important part of the sales funnel for most local based small businesses.
Be Relevant
One line from Zuckerberg’s statement that summarizes it best…
“Local businesses connect with their communities by posting relevant updates and creating events”