Facebook updated the News Feed again and once more, marketers think the end has come. Here’s a look at Facebook’s ‘Bringing People Closer Together’ update and what it means to marketers.
Bringing People Closer Together
Facebook just announced they’re changing the News Feed, and ‘Bringing People Closer Together’. This change means they’ll now show more friend’s and family updates, and less posts from Pages.
In the minds of many social media marketers, this is horrid news for brands. The conspiracy theorists have already begun and the crying about killing our organic reach continues. “They’re just trying to get us to pay for ads.” You mean a business is trying to make money? No way! If this includes you, shut up and grow up.
Pages spamming garbage in the News Feed caused it. Marketers made their bed, now they get to sleep in it. And let’s find a way to work with it.
Preventing Your Page From Taking A Hit
Facebook has said is update will likely result in less reach, video views, and referral traffic for Page posts. Sucks, right? Not if you’re doing it right.
This change impacts Page posts that don’t generate much engagement. Sadly, that’s most Page posts. The vast majority of what brands think people want to see completely misses the mark. Have you looked at what most brands share on social? It’s complete crap.
And there’s your opportunity.
The secret to preventing your Page from taking a hit is to share content people actually want to engage with. That doesn’t mean sharing stuff your marketing mind thinks people wants or material your sales department believes they want. This has to be stuff people truly, genuinely want to engage with.
How do you know your content is truly engaging? Would you consume it if you didn’t work for your company? Be totally honest with yourself. If you emailed it to 100 coworkers, would at least 95% click the link and check it out? If you can’t answer a resounding “Yes!” to both of those, your content is going to fail.
Come up with stuff to share your audience really wants to see. Sharing such will put you way ahead of 99% of pages on Facebook and prevent you from taking a hit from this latest update.
The Benefits Of This Change
There’s a great benefit to the ‘Bringing People Closer Together’ update and it means great things for brands that actually share truly engaging content.
With Facebook cutting back the number of Page posts they’re showing in the News Feed, you’ve got a lot less competition. Your content will stand out even more when it’s not competing with so many other Page posts.
Less competition means more eyes on you and that in turn means more opportunity for engagement.
You get more exposure, while others get less. It’s an awesome opportunity. All you need to do is come up with something to share that people actually want to see.
Find The Silver Lining
Every time Facebook makes an update, many marketers focus their energy crying about it and stamping their feet. It changes nothing. Find a different way to focus that energy. Find the opportunity and take it while others are busy complaining about how the world isn’t fair.
The ‘Bringing People Closer Together’ update will likely have a negative impact on most Pages. But those that share what their audiences want to see should have little to fear.
It may be time to rethink the content you share on Facebook (and all social media for that matter) but if you can figure out what people want to see, not only will this update not impact you, it’ll mean you’ll see even greater success. Good luck.
