Facebook has once again tweaked its News Feed algorithm and the change will alter how often content from brands appears in News Feeds from people that have Liked that brand’s page. This post seems to write itself 2-3 times a year, doesn’t it?
The newest changes, which rolled out last month and were announced last November, flip the script on brands. Previously, brands were told that they needed to add photos to their updates to increase engagement and visibility in Facebook’s News Feed.
Now? It’s the opposite, content with photos has the lowest reach.
Yeah. This is a big reason why I am always telling you to first plant seeds in the gardens you own. Invest in your website and blog first, not social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Because those sites can change the rules on you whenever they want, and Facebook is the worst offender here. What irks me most about this latest change is that it flies in the face of the advice that companies are hearing about social media. Companies have been taught for years that pictures drive engagement. That adding a relevant image to your content will enhance its value and the engagement around it. Now, Facebook is saying that pictures are penalized, if anything. This becomes a big problem for the companies that focus most of their social media efforts on Facebook because they will be learning what Facebook wants them to know about improving engagement on Facebook versus about what actually drives the engagement of social media content.
Facebook can be a wonderful complement to your existing online marketing efforts. Unfortunately, many companies use its Facebook page as a replacement for having a blog or even a website. And if they later decide to launch a blog or website, they can take the bad lessons learned on Facebook, and apply it to their blog. Like writing posts without images. Or only publishing ‘cute’ videos of kids falling in the snow and wondering why that’s not driving engagement on the company blog for an industrial lubricant supplier.
In a perfect world, Facebook’s goals would be aligned with your company’s goals. Facebook would want to show and teach you how to create content that is more engaging and valuable to your customers. But Facebook is now a publicly-traded company. Facebook’s goals are increasing revenue and profits. That’s likely a big reason why it’s moving toward putting more value on videos. Because watching videos means you stay on Facebook even longer. And as time spent on site goes up, Facebook can report that to shareholders as a sign of growth and to advertisers as leverage to raise ad rates.
Facebook’s goals are to make Facebook better for Facebook, not for your company. Your company is on its own, so plan accordingly.
FB seems to be increasingly modifying itself to cater toward large corporate customers who will shell out tons of cash to get their stuff seen. So much so that for a lot of smaller businesses, FB is more-or-less a waste of limited resources.
Great post as always, Mack.
Hi Jake, FB has definitely been trying to push businesses to pay for reach for a few years now. The big problem I see is that many small businesses use their Facebook page instead of a website or blog. Hate that so many businesses with very limited resources are making themselves that dependent on a platform that increasingly does not have their best interests in mind.
So many quotables! I hit this brick wall for years in a corporate setting. People that wouldn’t update the blogs on their sites, wouldn’t promote their email newsletters but would post on Facebook all day long. Ugh. No longer my problem.
While personally I don’t deal with Facebook. it does make sense for many businesses to maintain a presence there. Unless you’re huge and have dedicated staff to deal with it, just consistently post content relevant to your customers, and respond to any inquiries, comments, etc. People will still look you up on Facebook for information.
If you want to buy highly targeted ads from time to time, go for it. Go for it! They do work. But send people back to your site or to sign up for your email list. Don’t buy ads for likes. You will get a boost in likes anyway when you buy an ad.
Well, that got long. TL;DR I agree. Put the most effort into the stuff you own.
Yes if done in a calculated way to move people back to properties you own, it can work. Great point, Laura!
We have to stop using the term “Organic Reach” with Facebook. It’s manipulated reach.
Bob, that’s a pretty fair point.