Over the past week, the media has been abuzz speculating what the latest Facebook algorithm means to businesses who rely on the platform to communicate with their customers. Publishers like the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have been covering the latest Facebook News Feed update endlessly since the news broke last Friday.
Facebook announced that they will be “shifting the focus of its news feed to promote ‘meaningful’ posts, mostly those shared by family and friends rather than news organizations or brands.”
As a personal user, this update sounds amazing! You won’t have to scroll for a mile past those tiresome sales posts to see what your friends and family are up to.
But from a business perspective, these articles may have you on high-alert. How is this shift going to affect the way you use Facebook to communicate with your customers?
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
As with every news feed update Facebook has made, one thing remains the same: quality content is key.
1) You must create meaningful content
Relevant content will keep your audience interested, while also increasing your reach and engagement. The more engaging a post, the more value Facebook attributes to it, which leads to a higher relevance score. Pages with high relevance scores appear more often in newsfeeds. So, if a user interacts with your content enough, you just might be able to make it into the ‘friend category.’
2) It’s a Pay-to-Play Model
Facebook has been moving in this direction for awhile now and this latest development proves that this model isn’t going away. Shifting the focus of its news feed to promote ‘meaningful’ posts” from friends and family means that business pages will be forced to use paid ads and sponsored posts if they have any hope of getting in front of their fans.
3) The cost of paid ad placement will most likely increase.
Because people will spend less time scrolling through their newsfeeds, they’ll spend less time on the platform and business pages will have less opportunity to serve content. As advertisers compete for those limited opportunities, being the highest bidder will certainly be beneficial.
4) Social influencers will become more important
Grassroots influencers and brand ambassadors can share brand messages with their followers, their friends and family, if you will. Facebook is the ultimate platform for word-of-mouth recommendations, so let’s get back-to-the-basics.
