3 Ways To Prepare For The Major Facebook Algorithm Change

On January 11th,  Mark Zuckerberg announced a major change would be coming to Facebook  - namely, to the Facebook algorithm. Now, algorithm changes have happened before so you may be wondering what the big deal is. Well, this time, Facebook’s changes will have the biggest and most detrimental impact to businesses to date. This means, if you have a Facebook business page (as a brand, freelancer, blogger or anything else) you need to be prepared. Luckily, there are ways to come out on top during this transitional period! Read on to find out what this change means for you and 3 ways to prepare for the major Facebook algorithm change.

First off, what is this big change all about? At the base of it all, it’s about helping people to connect with one another, as opposed to connecting with brands. What this means for your business is this: Facebook business ‘page’ posts will no longer be organically shown on the news feed unless they meet one rule. The rule is that the posts must have a viral component in which people must be commenting and interacting with each other (not with the brand) within the comments section. Pretty tricky right? Luckily, there are a few ways to encourage this kind of engagement.

Getting users to interact with each other instead of directly with your brand will require adapting your Facebook strategy somewhat. This is especially true considering ‘engagement-bait’ now comes with a penalty (so you cannot directly tell people to ‘like’ your post).

Some ways to adapt to the new Facebook algorithm by encouraging internal engagement are:

• Post more Live videos. According to Facebook, “people comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos”.

Here’s an example of a Facebook Live video
Sakara Life, a successful meal delivery service, frequently streams live videos of their exclusive events and interviews with nutrition experts

• Focus more on your time on Facebook Groups, which naturally encourage this kind of user-to-user engagement.

An example of a Facebook Group related to a business page
The Desire Map is a Facebook Group affiliated with the business page of Danielle LaPorte, popular author and speaker. By encouraging interaction within this community, Danielle will inherently gain more exposure with her posts in this group, versus her actual business page.

Even while doing this, expect your Facebook reach to become extremely limited over the next few months. The silver lining in all of this is that paid ads will still be a surefire way to receive some exposure. In saying that, expect competition from big-name players (Whole Foods, Sephora etc.) to go up, thus making it harder for small brands to compete.  

Ultimately, even this strategy overhaul will only go so far during this major Facebook algorithm update. From a marketing perspective, you will need to look beyond this and formulate a game plan that will ensure you stay ahead of the curve. We suggest that your game plan consists of three main components.

Here are 3 Ways To Prepare for the Major Facebook Algorithm Change

1. It’s time to stop putting all your eggs in one basket. Think of social media like the stock market and diversify. Consider which channels, platforms, campaigns and mediums are actually working for you. And remember -  diversifying means thinking beyond Instagram marketing. Since Facebook owns Instagram, there is a strong possibility that the latter will start tweaking its algorithm soon too.

2. Leverage your followers. You hustled hard for your audience and you need to ensure that you can continue to communicate with them. Encourage them to join you on another platform, one wherein you have greater or complete control over what information they receive from you. A great example of this is email! If you don’t already have an email list now would be a VERY good time to start one. You can encourage all of your Facebook followers to sign up for the list now.

3. Invest in quality content. Gone are the days where you can repost from Pinterest and hope for the likes to roll in. Likewise, gone are the days where you can rely on ‘shared’ content from other brand pages. You now need to invest your time in considering how you can add true value to your audience through your content. As known entrepreneur Gary Vee has been saying for a long time now -  every single brand should have a media company mentality. This means “There is ZERO excuse not to be creating content around your brand, your product, your service or your business. If you don’t have something to say, document.”

The new Facebook algorithm will impact everybody in the long term. This highlights the importance of focusing on alternative marketing avenues such as email marketing, SEO, consistent content creation (including photography), and blogging.

With this in mind, it’s worth considering turning to new platforms. One example is Notey. Notey provides brands with content marketing services ranging from content sourcing to collaborative publishing. Big name companies like HSBC are already using the platform to create original content.

When it comes to creating original content in the face of the Facebook algorithm change, Pivot Six recommends using the acronym CDC:
 

1. Create content from scratch. Trust us, you can do it! Think of what would make educational, motivational and/or fun content.

2. Document your reality. Share  what’s going on behind the scenes, your new products, your production process and upcoming events.

3. Curate and share. You know those articles you like to save in tabs and then email out to your friends? Well, chances are your audience would be interested in them too. After all, if you find them valuable enough to send to friends, they’re probably worth sharing with your extended tribe.

In light of the major Facebook algorithm changes, brands and businesses will need to take it upon themselves to restrategize. The age-old methods of baiting users for comments or likes and sharing others’ content will no longer work. Three ways to prepare yourselves are to diversify across channels, encourage your followers to join you on other platforms and to invest in the creation of quality content. Finally, when creating original content, don’t forget to use Pivot Six’s acronym CDC: Create, Document and Curate.

Do you have a method for creating great content? Shoot us a message at hello@pivotsix.com!