Last month, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook announced changes to the social networking site that have left many businesses quaking in their boots.
The spread of media content has caused Facebook to deviate from its original goal of connecting people and therefore, these changes, which will be made to the social network’s algorithmic formula will see the platform return to its roots and prioritise news that directly impacts its users. Facebook wants people to have more “meaningful interactions” so, users can expect their newsfeeds to look a bit different with far more news about what’s going on in their local community and what their friends and family are up to.
In his statement on Facebook, Zuckerberg said: “One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.
“We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.
“But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
While this modification is being made with great intentions for Facebook users, it will of course have repercussions for many businesses who use Facebook as a tool to drive traffic to their websites and to increase sales. However, at Big Cat, we are experts in all things Social Media related so we’ve done our research and whittled down all the information to exactly what you need to know and how it will affect you:
What are meaningful interactions?
If you’ve seen anything about this algorithmic change already, you will have read the term “meaningful interactions”, but what exactly does that mean? Will our newsfeeds now be cluttered with heartfelt and “meaningful” messages from one friend to another? No, don’t worry – Facebook defines a “meaningful interaction” as commenting, liking, reacting, sharing and viewing.
Well that’s easy, I’m sure you get loads of “meaningful interactions” already, so what’s the problem? Well, basically, for your business it means that if you want your content to appear on someone’s newsfeed then your posts are going to have appeal and relate to them more than something from their Mum. Any organic content that you produce will have to get your fans and followers to comment, like and share – but not by asking them to.
Although it might sound tricky, this really isn’t a bad thing. The idea is to provide Facebook users with a better experience (and hopefully diminish the influence of fake news at the same time) so it just means that businesses will be forced to think more about the content they’re putting out there and think more about their audience needs. At the end of the day, Facebook is a business and its users need to enjoy their time on their site otherwise they’ll go somewhere else and if they do that then you won’t be using Facebook for your business anyway.
Engagement bait is not the answer.
Don’t try and trick the new algorithm, it’s far too clever and if you try to beat it by posting phrases such as ‘tag a mate’, ‘share if’, ‘like if’ or ‘comment below’, your post will be penalised, and its reach curtailed – even if you pay for it!
Also, not to be confusing, but what Facebook deems a meaningful interaction isn’t what businesses do, so when checking your analytics, don’t get bogged down by engagement because a “meaningful interaction” for you is a click to site, a purchase or a lead.
So how will anyone ever be able to see what you've got to say?
Realistically, you’ll need to pay and boost your posts but your content will still need to be good.
What counts as good content?
Well these days it’s all about video! According to Facebook, 95% of content on the platform will be video by 2020, but already, video is the format that converts the most on social media channels and a video view is also considered as a key “meaningful interaction.” For an example of the kind of video we mean, take a look at this one we did for our client Kingfisher Shopping Centre and this one for Absolutely Karting.
As Facebook is focused on making the platform less ‘passive’, and more ‘interactive’, live videos in particular are something that Facebook really wants to encourage as they generate lots of interactions between family and friends. It’s definitely worth thinking about how you can use Facebook Live as part of your social strategy.
Know your audience
If you don’t already, then get to know your audience. Find out what content they like by using polls to ask them. Monitor their engagement and use their comments to generate content ideas. Your audience will then get what they came for, in return they will engage with your page and Facebook will love you for giving its users more “meaningful interactions.”
And finally
Make sure you carry out regular social media audits to ensure you know what’s working well, what’s not and also to monitor how your audience want to engage with you.
Want to find out how Big Cat can help to leverage your social media and create compelling content that will get you noticed? Get in touch with us here.