Facebook recently announced a major update to what/how content is displayed on user’s feeds. In response to users frustration on being inundated with commercial content Facebook is deemphasizing unpaid commercial content and emphasizing more of your friends and family posts. This change in Facebook’s information display is an effort to return the platform back to its original purpose. Mark Zuckerberg’s post says it all: “I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”
What does this mean for businesses?
Facebook is wanting to promote more social interaction and less salesy posts in an effort to help people feel more connected to their friends and family. Before with a good marketing team you could build you presence on Facebook organically but with the new update it will force businesses to look at more paid advertising in order to get your brand out there.
Where do we go from here?
For many businesses it may mean how evaluating how Facebook is used in their overall marketing strategy. For most it is used as a sales funnel with posts focusing more on the company’s products and services. Businesses now will need to look at posts that are more community orientated or connect with their user base on an emotional level with the goal being to get higher engagement (likes, shares, comments) on posts. This means that companies will have to get more creative on how to get their message across.
This also means that businesses that use Facebook as a major part of their marketing strategy will need to think diversifying their marketing initiatives more. Facebook advertising is still an options but for those using Facebook to drive sales may find themselves having to spend more to reach their target market. Diversifying your marketing strategy is key to having a successful business; it helps prevent a loss when a social media platform decides to do a major change such as this.
You can’t blame Facebook for wanting to go back to their roots of helping people connect more with each other. It isn’t time for businesses to abandon this platform, but we will have to adapt and learn how we fit into their new social connection model.
I actually think this is a good thing for everyone – both FB users and businesses trying to sell things on FB. When there are constant non-stop ads, they become easier to ignore (ad blindness), so although fewer ads means our campaigns will be “slower”, they might end up being more effective as well. Guess we’ll just have to see!
Yes, I agree. I wonder if we will see and increase in CPC in Facebook ads, just like we’ve seen on Adwords. As Facebook is pushing more businesses to use ads we may have the same situation as adwords and having to pay more to maintain the same results.