Facebook News Feed Changes: How Should Businesses Respond?

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You always know when Facebook news feed algorithm changes are a big deal – Mark Zuckerberg announces them!

In early January, he wrote about how posts from businesses, brands and media will be less prominent on the Facebook news feed. Since then, we’ve had lots of questions about exactly what this means and how businesses can best respond. Let’s take a look. The impact on publishers, brands and agencies As Zuckerberg wrote, “public content is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.” PANIC! Well, maybe not. When Facebook entered the market, it was the real game-changer in social networking and, more than a decade later, it has evolved but the research teams have shown that user experience could, and should, be better. So what are they doing? Basically, in order to help users see more from family and friends, Facebook will be downgrading the reach of news and brand content from an organic perspective. This sounds scary for some but reach has been slow across the board for a while now and it is actually a good thing for brands. Better, personalised content The teams at the offices across the globe were prepared for lower engagement in the immediate aftermath and share prices fell immediately, but have already started to recover due to increased ad earnings. The short-term pains were obviously with long-term gains in mind. A powerful admission that changes were necessary but an improved user experience will see an increase in dwell times and engagement, which make Facebook stronger for everyone. Over time, this extra interaction across the pages will make it easier for brands to target people and also focus how they create content away from gimmicky copy into more useful content. How to create the right content for the Facebook news feed  Understanding what the “right content” is for your brand is all about testing, reporting and optimising. You don’t want to publish too much content and overwhelm your audience so try to develop a calendar on frequency during the week alongside ideal timings. Once this is done, ensure that photos and videos are shared more frequently because of the visual nature of the platform. On top of this, you can get your community to answer questions you have – generic or focussed. Don’t forget to engage with other brands, there’s no easier way to share the love than a reciprocal shout out. And, don’t be afraid to boost your posts! Don’t be scared of the ads As this rollout takes effect in the coming months, eyeballs on posts are likely to drop. There’s no getting away from this. However, part of every good social media strategy should incorporate the use of targeted ads and boosted content anyway. Keep your eyes peeled for our how to create targeted Facebook adverts post in the coming weeks.
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