Still Confused About Facebook Changes Effective Jan 2015? Here’s the Scoop
In case you missed it…back in November, Facebook announced some changes that will affect Facebook Business Pages and the people who love them – or do their marketing – or both. These changes have already been set in motion and many businesses either still aren’t aware of the changes or are confused about what to do going forward.
The Facebook changes effective Jan 2015 could mandate a shift in your content strategy. Now that the changes are in effect, it’s important to know and understand them so you can revise the content published on your Page.
Not usually forthcoming about the changes, I was happy to see Facebook published information before they put the changes into effect.
“Our goal with News Feed has always been to show people the things they want to see. When people see content that’s relevant to them, they’re more likely to be engaged with their News Feed, including stories from businesses.”
Translation: People don’t want to see promotional posts in their News Feed.
Deeper Meaning: If you’re business publishes posts with promotional content, we want you to pay for that privilege.
“News Feed has controls for the number of ads a person sees and for the quality of those ads (based on engagement, hiding ads, etc.), but those same controls haven’t been as closely monitored for promotional Page posts. Now we’re bringing new volume and content controls for promotional posts, so people see more of what they want from Pages.”
Bear in mind, this is NOT a negative change. Quite the contrary. What other mediums allow you to publish marketing messages for free? None that carry the impact Facebook does.
I spoke with a prospect recently about this and was able to convince him that for a few hundred dollars per month in Facebook ads budget, he could grow his Page, drive traffic to his website and convert fans into customers. Spending marketing dollars on ads requires a marketing plan and some expert tactics. This is nothing new. The only thing new is that you can reach intended buyers more readily. This is the cost of generating leads and winning sales.
As a novice Facebook marketer, you may be inclined to want to post promotional content on your page. It seems like that’s what you’d do (if you’re new or if you have the old school advertising mentality). If this is the case, then the biggest change in your Facebook content will be to stop posting organic promotional messages.
Here are some consistent traits that make organic posts feel too promotional:
- Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app.
- Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context.
- Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads.
This is an example of these types of Page posts:
As in similar algorithm changes, Facebook told us what NOT to do and were very vague on what TO do. They did say this: “Businesses should think about their Page as a cornerstone of their online identity, not simply as a publishing service.” (because if you want a publishing service, you need to pay them).
Every brand is different, however, for the smarter brands with a solid content strategy in place, these changes will have minimal effect. If you’re new or don’t have a solid content strategy, there’s still time to overcome the Facebook changes effective Jan 2015. Here’s a twist on how to get your product out there without being promotional in an organic post:
It will now be essential, rather than just advisable, to plan to boost sales content on Facebook from the start. It will also likely be a good idea that specifically sales-oriented content of the type that Facebook cited in its post be created as Dark Posts.
While sounding a bit evil, Dark Posts are simply the tactic of using the Power Editor to create News Feed-style ads that don’t actually get published to the News Feed of your page but do land in the News Feed and mobile devices of users.
The balance of what you do on Facebook should be geared toward engaging, conversing with and helping your fans, along with driving them to content across your other web channels.
Facebook marketing is not getting any easier, my friends. In 2015, it will become even more important to have an expert help you develop a marketing plan and assist with implementing it. When things get ultra-tricky, you’ve got to be better at playing the game.
If you find Social Media and online marketing overwhelming or just would like to be more effective with your marketing, we offer a free marketing assessment. We’ll review the information you provide – research it – compare it to your competitors – and then set up a time with you to share our recommendations. The goal is to provide you with at least 3 solid recommendations on how you could improve your marketing today. Click here to get started: –> Marketing Assessment 2015
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