Much has been written recently about the new Facebook algorithm. If you haven’t heard about it (where have you been?) here it is in a nutshell.
For some time now, the Facebook News Feed has been THE place for a business to reach their followers. Recently Facebook announced that it is changing it’s News Feed algorithm to prioritise person to person engagement, or “meaningful social interactions” as they put it, over person to page engagement. They want to swing the balance back in favour of posts from your actual friends and family, as opposed to videos and other content from businesses, celebrities and brands.
So is this a good or a bad thing? Will it have a negative impact on the visibility of your page’s content?
Part of Facebook’s strategy particularly means demoting posts from pages that use ‘engagement bait’…you will have seen it, crappy memes asking you to ‘tag a mate who would do this’ etc etc.
Let’s start by laying it on the line…clickbait sucks. It’s never going to result in a meaningful social interaction because it’s just completely unnatural behaviour. This stuff is not encouraging genuine engagement, just manipulating users into feeling they MUST click on something, only to ultimately be disappointed in the result. Clogging our News Feeds with unimaginative nonsense is an easy way to increase insincere vanity metrics, without having to invest the time and energy into valuable, relevant messages. Until now.
We know creating good content that people want to see, at the same time as you’re trying to build/run a business, is hard. The struggle is real, and we feel your pain.
Think about how your content might be perceived by a person. A real-life person. The best way to get them to like, comment on, or share your content is to approach them like a human, not a robot, or some gross spammer. Always have in the back of your mind that you’re trying to start a conversation, not just sending out one-way traffic into the atmosphere. Focus your energy on creating quality content, to position your brand as trustworthy and genuine, to build your buzz.
Will it have a negative impact on the visibility of your page’s content? If you’re churning out poor-quality, hard-sell content, definitely yes. Even if you’re not, if no-one engages with your content Facebook could penalise you by reducing your organic reach. But, as for if you’ll notice a difference… unlikely. Facebook organic reach for pages has been declining for some time.
If you aren’t already investing in Facebook paid ads, you probably should start. If you are, I would expect to see your CPR (cost per result) increase because of the growth in competition.
The bottom line? Make sure your content matters. If you’re already doing this, sit tight, there’s no need to panic. If not, have a think about how you can be starting more “meaningful social interaction” with your audience.
If you need any help from an Adelaide digital marketing agency, hit us up, or get active on our socials!
