Outsource To Us looks at how businesses can best build and maintain a social media presence under Facebook’s new algorithm.
Contrary to popular belief, what you see on your Facebook newsfeed is far from random. The popular social media platform uses a number of complex, ever-changing algorithms to decide what users see and, more importantly, what they don’t see.Under January’s newly introduced algorithms, posts are now prioritised in the newsfeed to foster ‘meaningful conversations’ – in other words, posts from family and friends are being highlighted while posts from business accounts are seeing a significant decline in their post views and interactions. If you run a business, you may have already noticed a decline in Facebook-led conversion and sales in recent months.
Impact of Facebook’s Changes on Your Business
So, what do these changes mean for the future of your business, and how can you navigate them to reach your audience effectively?
Firstly, there will never be a perfect blueprint for utilising Facebook, algorithms and all, to create audience interaction for your business. Every business will have their own specific target markets, sales techniques, and desired organisational outcomes that must be catered to. For Julia Simmonds, founder of children’s eczema cream supplier Itchy Baby Co, the new algorithms created such a slump in sales that she had to restructure the company’s entire marketing process. Posts that were previously reaching the company’s 85,000 followers were now being seen by around 10,000. The corresponding 60% plunge in sales forced Simmonds to restructure Itchy Baby Co’s resources to direct email marketing, shifting a predominantly e-commerce business into a more direct B2B approach.
However, as we’ve become more accustomed to Facebook’s ‘new rules’, there is hope yet for businesses who are wanting to maintain a strong social media presence. Past algorithms have led the platform to favour video content from business pages, which in turn encourages higher interaction from followers. Here are two of the best tips to help your business capitalise on Facebook’s video-algorithm relationship:
Quality Over Quantity
Posts that foster meaningful engagement don’t necessarily have to be restricted to your Aunty’s family snaps or your childhood sweetheart’s dog memes. For businesses, video content that encourages dialogue between followers will ultimately receive more shares, likes and comments, boosting its ranking in the newsfeed. To set your brand’s video content apart from your competitors and the inevitable buzzfeed tasty clips, ensure that it’s relevant to your community. Instead of concentrating on a product or service, try creating videos that cultivate human connection while featuring your product or service as a secondary focus. One really fantastic example of this is the Dollar Shave Club’s debut promotional video, which saw 12,000 registrations for the service within 48 hours of the video being posted to YouTube.
Let’s Get Technical
No matter how high-quality your video content may be, it will fail to engage your users if it’s not (you guessed it) user-friendly. As of February this year, 56.5% of people have said that they only log into Facebook using a mobile device. It’s absolutely crucial that your brand’s video content is not only mobile-friendly (think square video), but can get your message across effectively without sound, using text instead (keeping in mind that 85% of Facebook videos on mobile devices are viewed with the sound off). By creating a video that’s not only easy to relate to but easy to view, your chances of boosting your business’ ranking in the newsfeed and creating genuine engagement are much more promising.
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