Facebook have announced one of the biggest changes in Newsfeed to date. On Thursday 11th Mark Zuckerberg published a post detailing that from now on there will be a bigger focus on content from friends, family and groups. These changes are not set to effect adverts. So what does this mean for users and businesses?
For users, we should expect to see more meaningful content from friends and family. This content will still be biased, showing posts from those we interact with on a regular basis first. However, in theory, we should also see posts from a wider range of friends and family who Facebook would have traditionally removed from newsfeed in the place of organic page content. We should also still see content from the pages we like (but we can expect to see less) and, of course, users will still see adverts.
Meanwhile, for businesses, we can expect a much wider range of changes.
Although organic content will still be important, there will be a noticeable reduction in organic reach (the reach of content without advertising). Zuckerberg has explained that users will
“see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
Translating this into business terms it simply means that your best organic content will be shown to your organic fans, while the rest won’t go as far. It will be time to focus on quality instead of quantity and engagement will be key. But remember, before you start shamelessly asking people to “like, comment and share” every post, an update Facebook ran in December pulling posts that shamelessly ask for engagement from Newsfeed, therefore subtly asking for engagement will be the way forward.
Timing and content type will be more important than ever, giving your organic content the very best chance to be seen.
While Facebook Adverts will become vital – if you aren’t already using adverts now is the time to start incorporating them into your Social Media Marketing plan. But before you start pushing the big boost button in a panic invest in some ad training to make your vital advertising budget worthwhile.
It’s also time to start thinking about the other Social Networks in more detail. Twitter and Instagram are still great platforms and should become more important in your overall strategy.
