Whenever there is a major change to a social media platform, digital marketers tend to panic. Last month, Facebook announced that it was making changes to the News Feed. The announcement focused on the company’s decision to de-emphasize commercial content, so that users could engage in meaningful interactions with each other. However, this update only reinforced what we all should have been doing to begin with.
You may think that this kills organic reach even more, but organic reach was already dead for all intents and purposes. The average page was receiving less than 1 percent in organic reach. The prospects for organic reach couldn’t have been much worse prior to the change.
If your page is receiving high engagement, you should be able to maintain your success. This update intends to show people only the content they want to see and engage with, but that’s also been the case for a while. The announcement just served as a formalization of established policy.
Page owners who were already making content that people care about won’t be affected. Everyone else needs to step up their game. In order to be seen, people must engage with your content, which generates more views and more engagement.
The best way to get engagement is to make content relevant to your audience. Again, this has always been the case. Unfortunately, it’s something that’s easy to lose site of. We all sometimes get caught up in wanting to see numbers that we forget to create content that is meaningful.
For those who want to get in front of more Facebook users, the best way to do that is through Facebook Ads. Facebook has been pushing everyone toward paying for reach. Considering Facebook is a business with a goal to make money, no one should be surprised.
