You Are Not Alone: Facebook Changes Decoded

Have you been noticing that your Facebook engagement and organic reach is majorly lacking? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Facebook has made several changes over the last 6 months that is forcing marketers and brands a like to rethink their social media strategy. I will walk you through it.

There is a reason your engagement has gone down, and its not because your fans don’t enjoy your content. In fact, in many cases they aren’t even seeing what you are posting.  Facebook has changed their algorithm so that when you post content, only a small fraction of your followers (on average around 3%) are actually seeing that it. If  by chance that small fraction of people interact with your post, Facebook will magically allows it to be spread to other people. If your post gets little interaction, the organic reach stops there. So what does this mean? It means changing the way we think about Facebook posting, and working with these new cards Facebook has dealt us.

I know that what I’ve just said is a little daunting, but try and stay cool. There are ways to work around this new algorithm. Yes, it might include some rethinking and spending a little more money, but hey- you didn’t think social media would be totally free forever did you?

1. Try A Different Schedule: Facebook is an incredibly saturated market. In fact, every 20 minutes over 1 million links are shared! So, you can see why Facebook needs to filter and sort our feeds so that we are only seeing a portion of those posts. The problem is that this system is flawed. Now, your fans who actually care about your content might not be seeing it. So, one way to combat this is to try and post at different times during the day. Are you a food brand? Try posting at night right before dinner. Are you a leisure company? Post on the weekends.  Do some testing. Post at different times during the day and see which perform the best.
2. Boost Posting: Despite what Facebook has said in the past, they are definitely moving towards charging marketers and brands to have their content seen. Boosting posts can be a very effective way to spend your social media dollars. Pick and choose posts throughout the month that you think are especially important for your fans to see. Maybe it is a special sale or campaign, or maybe its just a really cool piece of content you have been working on. Decide on a budget (anywhere from $30-$300 can be a good place to start) and try some testing.
3. Reduce Posting: This last tip combines 1 & 2. If you are like us, you probably have a pretty steady posting schedule. Take a deep breath, it’s time to think outside of that 9-5, 5 days a week schedule. Try reducing your posting, and increase the amount of posts that get boosted. Test scheduling those couple of posts at different times during the week. Figure out what works best for you and stick with it.

Facebook is going to continue to push us to our limits and force us to rethink our strategies. But that’s okay, right? Change is good and with a little out of the box thinking we can work through it together.