Despite The Alterations, Here’s How To Make Your Facebook Marketing Efforts A Smashing Success.
It’s a new year, and 2023 might just be the beginning of a brand-new era in Facebook advertising.
There has been widespread panic among businesses and marketers due to Facebook’s recent algorithm changes. Your Facebook updates are less likely to appear in your fans’ news feeds, if they do at all, unless marketers start paying to boost their visibility.
There are many doomsday predictions, but what is actually happening? Could this be the final chapter? Should we start hoarding paper towels and running through zombie evacuation scenarios now?
No, actually. It’s a big deal that’ll change how social media marketers operate, but it won’t be the end of the world. We can break down Facebook’s recent changes into three categories, each with a plethora of potential responses.
- Content trumps images: The first major change involves those gorgeous, eye-catching image posts everyone has been obsessed with this past year. It was widely agreed upon by social media marketing agencies that including a large image in a business’s status updates increased the likelihood of a positive response from followers. However, Facebook has now confirmed that images will not be given the same prominence they once did. Images uploaded to the body of a status update won’t get the same exposure they once did, especially memes.
Which begs the question, “What will replace them?” Will Facebook degenerate into a wasteland of text and links without any visual appeal? Contrary to popular belief, you idiot! In 2018, Facebook advertising will still rely heavily on large, eye-catching images. How? The use of link postings.
That means the large images that have always drawn in the crowds will remain. Make sure the article you’re linking to has a decent preview image before you post it.
However, the real issue at hand is the shift in focus to content, or “high-quality articles” as Facebook puts it. The king, the queen, the prince, the princess, and everyone in between now all bow down to content. Because of this update to the algorithm, it is now more important than ever for marketers to produce and promote only the very best content. To adapt to Facebook’s first marketing tweak, businesses need to crank out high-quality articles and share them via link posts with eye-catching thumbnails. You can’t really call that a bad thing, can you?
2. Participation is critical. In case you needed another piece of the Facebook advertising puzzle, here it is. If a post has been commented on by a user’s friends, the post will rise to the top of their newsfeeds. What this means is that the content and preview images you share need to inspire interaction. We’re done with meaningless “Here’s my latest blog post!” links and ad hoc references. Marketers will need to work hard at encouraging Facebook users to engage with their brand through comments rather than just likes or clicks. This will increase the likelihood that their fan pals will see the post in their news feed. What’s the gist of this? Now is the time to master the art of the compelling call to action for your posts. The best way to encourage feedback from your audience is to test different approaches and act on the insights you gain. Still, this can’t be the worst thing ever, can it?
3. Third, accept the inevitable: we’ll be out the money. At this point, it seems inevitable. There isn’t much time left for brands to gain exposure for free through organic channels. Even if we do everything in our power to keep our fans engaged and engaged with our content, Facebook has stated that “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continue to work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.”
Exactly what does this imply? You should evaluate this in light of your own professional objectives. Using Facebook as a promotional tool for your business’ content might not be the best idea any longer; should you invest money in spreading content that you can get for free? If that’s your main strategy for bringing in business, then maybe it does. Maybe not, though; perhaps you’d be better off concentrating your energies elsewhere, such as Twitter or LinkedIn or Google+ or Pinterest or Tumblr or Instagram. Do you get it now? Although Facebook has a tremendous user base, it is far from the only social media option available.
Now, the question that begs a million dollars. What’s your Facebook ROI? Paying for reach may not have much of an impact on your bottom line if Facebook is already generating a significant number of leads and sales for your business. You might even be using Facebook ads right now if you’re not careful. Keep updating your page and shooting for high-quality content and comments if Facebook is a good source of ROI for you, but shift your attention to other (read: free) social media platforms if it isn’t.
Just relax and put down the axe for a moment. It’s frustrating, and it’ll certainly alter things, but we’ll be fine. You have our word on that.