Is Facebook’s Recent News Feed Update a Threat to Your Business?

Facebook has just announced an update to the news feed algorithm. The social media giant is continuing to push for more posts from friends and family, and less from businesses, brands, and publishers. This update means that posts made from business pages are going to be seen less often on the news feed – that’s less eyes on your posts, less engagement from your audience, and less reach of your business!

But is this really a surprise? If you’ve owned any kind of business page on Facebook, you’ve already noticed that your organic reach has been gradually declining.

The good news is, almost all of your competitors’ pages are similarly affected. The better news is, there’s still something you can do to circumvent this issue.

Before we dive into some of our tips for continuing strong engagement on Facebook, here are a few things to keep in mind when trying to wrap your head around this new update:

• Zuckerberg stressed “meaningful interaction” in the update, which basically means content needs to be honest, human, and helpful.
• Posts from friends and family still includes shares from other page’s posts and articles. That means you should focus on getting your content shared from your business Facebook page and from your website onto the personal pages of your followers.

With that in mind, here are some things you can do today to keep up your Facebook presence and engagement:

• Focus on growing your Facebook Group: Pages have introduced the ability to feature a specific Group on the Page. In Groups, members can interact with each other, and the notifications that members receive are more often (given that the Group itself is active). Create a specific theme for your Group, set the specific rules encourage commenting between the members, post your own content and pin your content to the top, and enjoy.
• Make your profile your brand page: For many small business owners and solopreneurs, you are the brand already. But no matter how big you get, you should not let that slide. So how does this translate to your Facebook strategy? Since the update focuses more on posts from friends and family, why not take your profile and elevate that? Public profiles can now add a subscription feature, so that other people don’t necessarily have to add you as a friend to see your profile posts.
• Produce active Facebook Live videos: Videos are still the top-performing content on Facebook, and Live is where it’s all at. Sometimes, just a few broadcasts can really pump up your engagement, and depending on the topic of your broadcast, you can get significant engagement and comments on the video.

No matter what you do regarding this update, just remember that quality counts. If you have more questions or want help with your social media marketing, call our team today at (800) 764-8528.