Facebook Fallout: Your New Social Media Strategy for 2018

Early this year, Facebook announced a major retooling of it’s algorithm to promote “friends and family first.” If you’re a brand strategist, audience engagement or communications specialist, or digital marketer, you’ve likely already seen the countless news articles by every publisher from Digiday to Bloomberg discussing the implications—limited organic reach, fewer clicks, less engagement. But what’s your plan of action if you’re a small brand or business? We take a look at what recourse your brand should be taking.

Don’t Panic

Before we dive too far into this, I’ll simply say this: don’t panic. This isn’t the first time Facebook has made seismic changes to it’s algorithm. At the end of 2016, we saw Facebook abandon its chronological timeline and Instagram doing the same soon thereafter, and brands were immediately limited to around 52% of their average reach. While we expect another dip in organic reach, it isn’t scaring us away from the platform.

The Need for Diversification

This word comes up often in quotes from major publishers when asked for their thoughts on the algorithm change. Everyone is placing a larger focus on “diversification.” If you’re currently putting all of your eggs in the Facebook basket, then you’ve got some changes to make.

Brands need to be actively building communities on different platforms; Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter are the powerhouses but aren’t the only options. Depending on your brand, audience and content you may want to explore the secondary platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest or non-traditional platforms like Houzz, Medium and Spotify. Now also seems like a good time to say we expect Instagram to deprioritize brand content in the near future as well.

Additionally, the immediate responses by some brands has been to build Facebook Groups to continue to reach their communities. However, Facebook has said that these changes will extend beyond the News Feed into all of its offerings—meaning Groups will be subject to the same level of content scrutiny as well.

How Your Page Will be Affected

In a recent news release, Facebook spelled out what Pages would be effected and what content types would reach the most people:

“Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect.”

In response to the question “What type of Page posts will show higher in News Feed?”, it continues:

“Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in News Feed. For example, live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos. Many creators who post videos on Facebook prompt discussion among their followers, as do posts from celebrities. In Groups, people often interact around public content. Local businesses connect with their communities by posting relevant updates and creating events. And news can help start conversations on important issues.”

Essentially, we’re boiling this down to three considerations: 1) Revise your posting frequency and content to focus on quality over quantity, 2) Facebook is forcing your hand at adopting and effectively implementing its unique offerings—Live, Messenger Chat Bots, 3) News (and links in general) will be deprioritized unless it sparks a conversation.

News No More

Facebook seems to be saying it doesn’t want to be your primary news source anymore, unlike Twitter. If you take a look on the Apple App Store, you’ll actually see that Twitter has reclassified itself as a “News” app, where Facebook and the other usual suspects are listed as “Social Networking.” As a matter of fact, Facebook rejects that it’s a media company.

I bring this up to illustrate the point that, while you can bring your news to Facebook a la the standard link post, I anticipate this will become an under-performing content type soon. I know this hurts from a website traffic standpoint, but reserve link sharing for content you know will create a conversation. Sharing too many links, unless they generate a high level of engagement, will likely hurt how your Page posts are shown over time. Also take into consideration that news outlets (possibly extending to blogs or entire domains) will be ranked by trustworthiness in the future.

Alternatively, want to share news and links? Take it to Twitter.

Long Live Longform

There’s a reason Vine isn’t around any more. Short video content is difficult to monetize. Watch any major YouTube creator and you’ll certainly notice this one thing—all of their videos are roughly 10 minutes. The YouTube algorithm, where Facebook prioritizes engagement, places watch time front and center. With the development of Facebook Watch last year, we anticipate Facebook will continue to try and usurp YouTube on this front as well. While the benefit of the Watch page isn’t available to everyone off the bat, you can explore what’s currently out there, post your own longform videos and finetune your work. You can read more about Show Page, the content that feeds into Facebook Watch here.

But short form isn’t dead, “passive viewing” is. Our assumption is that Facebook wants to clean house of low-quality videos. Now, we don’t know what that looks like just yet, or what is classified as “premium” content, but this Business Insider article on the topic sheds some light through conversations with major publishers:

“Facebook has suggested it will reward intentional content viewing and de-prioritize accidental or passive consumption on its feed,” said Matthew Segal, a founder of the social-news startup ATTN. “This is good news for publishers who meticulously produce video with a goal of reaching a specific, passionate audience. Publishers who tend to trick their audience into viewing content with video GIFs or animal reactions will probably take a hit.”

Basically, gone are the days of the 13 million view BuzzFeed GIF memes.

Community Managers are More Important Now Than Ever

In a time where positive interactions online with your brand are now the key to consumers, why would you not begin or continue to invest in someone who can digitally represent your brand through content creation, community engagement and all of the accompanying social media maintenance?

What’s Next?

Let’s face it, you might be a business or Page that doesn’t spark a significant amount of conversation. What do you do with your Facebook Page? I’d recommend three simple things: Reduce your posting frequency and only post your best content, optimize you Page to serve as a customer service tool, and invest in other platforms.

If you’re a media buyer, it’s time to master Facebook ads. I expect the space to get much more competitive—driving up the cost—and becoming a vital part of reaching people on Facebook in this new era.

TL;DR Takeaways:

• Think of this algorithm change as the “Engagement Shift.” Facebook now strongly prioritizes content that engages. You must create content that engages and engage with your community—don’t leave your community manager in the dust.
• Build your community on other platforms.
• Video isn’t going away, but you do need to perfect your approach. Find what resonates with your audience. Continue to explore rich content: Live video, Photos, 360/VR, etc.
• Since Facebook is attempting to transition to longform video content (10–30 minutes), it’s best to begin exploring this now.
• Link posts will continue to fall from Facebook’s favor. Reserve sharing all of your (or other’s) news on Facebook and save it for Twitter.