There has been lots of media discussion this week about facebook changing it’s edgerank algorithm. This has been happening for some time now but a statement by facebook confirming the change in early December has sparked a new series of discussion about the role of facebook in your marketing mix and the implications for small/ medium business users. Specifically the changes to the newsfeed (where majority of facebook users spend their time) include:

  • More links will be displayed within the news feed.
  • Links that are commented on by friends will receive a bump in the news feed.
  • Memes will receive a decrease in the news feed.

For some pages this change has meant that the organic reach of posts from some brand pages has dropped by up to 20% and content is not being seen by as many people as it has previously.

Why has this happened? As facebook has evolved the number of brands trying to reach consumers has grown exponentially so it’s of no surprise that they are needing to make adjustments to make sure that it’s the best and most relevant content that their users seen as its simply impossible to show all the content that is being fed into their system.

Business insider reported this morning that: “In August, Facebook revealed that “every time someone visits News Feed there are on average 1,500 potential stories from friends, people they follow and Pages for them to see, and most people don’t have enough time to see them all. These stories include everything from wedding photos posted by a best friend, to an acquaintance checking in to a restaurant. Let’s say the average Facebook user is awake for 17 hours a day. To consume all that stuff, they would take in 88 new items per hour, or 1.5 things per minute. That’s just not possible.” (see full article) 

Whilst page reach seems to have dropped, studies are showing that engagement across facebook has remained. This article from Edgechecker is worth a read.

There’s no doubt facebook still has a role in your marketing mix, but how you use it is changing and it’s important to be aware of performance to make sure that you are getting the most out of the time you spend there.

A couple of thoughts for you to consider about your facebook marketing for 2014.

  • Good quality content is critical

For your content to reach your customers it must be of value to them. No longer are funny meme’s, pictures and generic content going to cut it. It’s critical that you’re thinking through the content that you publish and ask yourself how does this help to connect with consumers and keep your brand top of mind.

This is a platform that people predominantly want to catch up and share information with family and friends so for a brand to cut through in this space and connect it needs to be of value. You need to be asking yourself whether the content you are publishing delivers and if not, make some changes to make sure you are cutting through.

Don’t use facebook in isolation and test out different types of content to work out what is performing best. As you’ll have read in the edgerank checker report the way different forms of content perform depends on each particular brand and if you’re only posting photos or status updates you won’t know what is working best.

  • Diversify your presence

Facebook is an important platform because of the number of users (over 9 million Australians using daily) and needs to form PART of your marketing mix but it’s not the only platform you should be using. When you have consumers engaged with your brand they will interact with you but don’t put all your eggs in the facebook basket – be prepared to grow your communities across other platforms like twitter, instagram, pinterest. And don’t forget email is still certainly not dead and growing your email list should still be a core marketing priority to connect with customers on an ongoing basis.

  • Allocate Budget to support

Sure facebook is a free platform but they are also a listed company and make money off advertising. From time to time you will need to invest in facebook to ensure that some of the most valuable content is seen and to reach new people. That’s just a fact of how the medium is evolving. If you want to create sharable content you will need to allocate the time and resources into making this work.

  • Watch and be prepared to change tact

Social media is an ever evolving beast and requires you to be flexible and change when things are not working. Keep an eye on the insights of your page, look at the website google analytics to see where the traffic is coming from and know what is working. The number of fans on your page gives you reach, but the number of people talking about you, sharing and engaging is the core metric that you need to be monitoring closely.

  •  Plan your content to make sure it’s timely and relevant

Social content is evolving and having a social media plan and content strategy is critical. Thinking about when you post and how you will continue to engage your audience, ask yourself what experiences you are creating offline to keep your consumers loyal and how you’ll monitor and reward those consumers who are interacting with you most.