As always, social media is continuing to change and evolve. You may have heard that Facebook is changing (again). On January 11th, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s news feed algorithm is changing to prioritise content from friends, family and groups over news and content from businesses, with an aim to ‘encourage meaningful interaction between people’.

These algorithm changes will roll out over the next few months and are likely to cause a significant change in your company’s Facebook activity.

Whilst we can’t tell you exactly what the impact will be, we’ve put together a few tactics for you to try, so that you have the best chances of continuing to reach your customers and of keeping engagement rates high.

 

1.Encourage your customers to follow your Facebook page:

By following, as well as liking a page it’s more likely that your customers will see the content you’re sharing. There’s even a ‘see first’ option for those extra loyal followers.

2.Continue to post relevant, engaging content:

The new changes from Facebook consider ‘meaningful interactions’ as comments. This means that pages which prompt and engage in conversation with their followers will see less of a decrease in engagement and will benefit more from the algorithm changes.

3.Use more visual content:

Images and especially videos have always been popular on Facebook. In 2017, around 80% of consumers said they prefer live video to a written social media post, so it comes as no surprise that their popularity is going to continue to grow in 2018.

4.Don’t be spammy!

Keep your content genuine. Avoid saying ‘comment for X, Y and Z’ – Facebook doesn’t favour pages using ‘engagement-bait’ and will demote these posts in the news feeds of the people you’re trying to reach.

5.Invest time AND money

Unfortunately, organic reach has been declining for a while and it’s no longer as easy to create conversation with your customers. Try paid advertising to reach your target market – there are some great targeting options available, including age, location, jobs and interests, so you can use those to drill down and reach out to your ideal customer.

 

Don’t be caught out when Facebook’s new algorithm changes reach you. Try these tips and let us know how you get on!

 

Advice about social media platforms for businesses

For marketing advice specific to your business, get in touch and speak with a marketing specialist on 01858 374 170 or email info@idealmarketingcompany.com

 

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