For over a week or so, the Internet has been awash with all kinds of speculations on what would happen to the average Facebook business page and little John Doe’s Facebook Advertising efforts. Facebook’s New Feed change could be felt by thousands of advertisers very quickly…
Mark Zuckerberg unleashed nuclear-level hysteria on the Internet for publishers, Facebook page managers/owners, experts, social influencers, and Facebook advertisers.
Chances are that you belong to one of those categories and that you’d be affected too. We certainly were glued to the unfolding events, news, and all sorts of theories flying around. It’s time to clarify what the Facebook news feed change update meant and how it affects all of us.
What’s the fuss about?
Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that they’ll focus on showing updates that make more meaning for you, as a Facebook user. You’ll see more updates from friends and family; from things that matter to you; and to only see those updates that make a difference to you.
Here’s the point where advertisers panic based on what Mark said:
“But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
Now, since the next Facebook Ad you’ll see on your newsfeed isn’t exactly “friends and family”, you can now imagine why the community is going hysteric.
And this:
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
So, hear this. If you:
- Have a business that provides products and services that make a difference to your customers
- Develop a long-term, value-rich, personalized, and meaningful business marketing strategy
- Your sales funnels aren’t just for gobbling up people’s personal information but are actually in place to engage meaningfully and to enrich people’s lives
You don’t have to panic at all. Here’s what happens and what you should be doing:
Organic Reach on Facebook Was Long Due
Mark Shaefer, in his post, Don’t Panic: The Facebook Announcement Is No Big Deal, puts it nice and succinct:
“Your content has to matter”.
But then, the death of organic reach on Facebook is long due.
If any content or update you put out on Facebook (or anywhere else for that matter) doesn’t add value and if it isn’t worth it, you don’t stand a chance.
Since what your customers are likely to see is only that which is meaningful for them, you’ll now be forced to add value, create conversations, and beat any sort of changes Facebook makes to its algorithms.
Put your Game Face on
Jay Baer of Convince and Convert writes,
“Facebook is too big to ignore. Instead, create content that stimulates meaningful responses, encourage user- and employee-generated content, use live video, (and more suggestions you can see in his post”
Jay quips that most content out there sucks anywhere and that’s precisely the reason why Facebook wants to pummel it down its own archives, collectively (Does this remind you of Google’s cleaning act to weed out crappy content off the web with updates like Panda and Penguin?).
Facebook is just reminding you to be real, authentic, and provide content that changes lives. Truly go out there and help instead of trying to “game the algorithms”.
Don’t Blame Facebook. Blame Yourself
Marketers, publishers, and businesses are to be blamed. By taking “social” out of context of “social media” and treating Social media as any other media, marketers, and businesses have flushed in so much of worthless content (in addition to ads and videos) that platforms like Facebook (and Twitter, and any other) have to take a call in the interest of keeping their own users’ interest in mind.
The kind of news that Facebook wants to devalue had no value, to begin with.
Good marketing is hard work.
- You need a fantastic, consistent, and sustainable content marketing strategy.
- Your marketing is not marketing when you don’t have sales funnels, landing pages, and email marketing list building (with the right kind of tools and software to help create powerful funnels or marketing pages, it’s not even an excuse anymore)
- Have a way to attract, engage, and then profit from it (Register for our webinar to learn just how to do that)
- Marketing is never a “do it once and leave it” or a “We’ll do when we can…” kind of a priority. Either you do it to win or you lose.
Try to tiptoe around what users really want and news feed updates like this are bound to happen.
Manipulative tactics will only last as long either a platform devalues your efforts or you go bust.
Instead of fumbling and panicking, it’s only time to get your digital marketing act together.
TL; DR: Facebook is too big to ignore. It’s latest news feed update only pushes you to do better marketing, provide value, and do digital marketing the way it should be done in the first place.
How are you going to change your Facebook marketing strategy?
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