A Few Facebook Strategy Changes For 2018

by Jeremy Banks Evolutesix

At the beginning of the year, marketers were rocked by Facebook’s algorithm change. The social media giant would now have news feeds prioritizing content from user friends more than content from brands. This meant that the old ways that many business marketers have grown complacent with may not work as easily as they used to.

Marketers now need to adjust their business’s social media strategy for Facebook, mainly through:

Setting Aside More Budget for Paid Ads

Many Facebook business page handlers may have noticed by now that their posts’ reach and engagements, as well as other page insights statistics, have drastically decreased ever since the new algorithm began to take effect. This is another consequence of Facebook’s change—for brand posts to appear more often on user news feeds, they have to rely on boosting them now more than ever. It’s one of the few ways that they can really get their message to the audience they’re targeting.

On another note, it was recently reported that the rates for paid ads have increased. This makes it even more crucial for advertisers to increase their budget for ad boosting.

Getting In Touch With Influencers

For those unfamiliar with the term, an influencer is someone who has the special ability to, as the term suggests, influence other peoples’ opinions and--more importantly for companies—their purchasing decisions.

What makes influencers a great asset for businesses is that they can connect to the audience in a way that brands cannot. Influencers interact with their followers as a fellow person (albeit a popular one) to another. While yes, companies can interact and act as personable as possible, they are still not human. A business may want to make an arrangement with the influencer—for a small price. It is a worthwhile investment to make, and can complement ad boosting for a wider reaching effect.

Scheduling at the Optimal Posting Time

This is a common piece of advice given by many social media experts. What makes it odd is that it is not something that many businesses take seriously, despite the world of good that it can do to them. A study of Facebook Page insights allows users to determine the best time to upload posts by taking note of the periods when users are online. Once applied to the page, it can help increase the reach, engagements, followers, and--more importantly—the conversions.

At the end of the day, what matters the most for a Facebook business page or any other social media account is that it’s able to convert those followers into customers. While it does feel good for a marketer to see that many users are reacting to posts and following their pages, a business owner is concerned with another matter. What they worry about is whether or not all those people will actually buy their products or avail their services.

If a business hasn’t done it yet, it might be a good idea to start adopting a mindset of quality over quantity for one’s business social media strategy right now, just as Facebook is already doing.