Mark Zuckerberg with a post on his personal Facebook account on January 11, 2018, changed the way businesses can look to Facebook as an advertising channel.
It turned everything that businesses had previously taken for granted on Facebook to advertise by posting and uploading videos.
Let’s see what Mark Zuckerberg announced about the changes at Facebook
“One of the biggest areas of focus for 2018 is to ensure that the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.
We created Facebook to help people stay in touch and bring us closer to the people we care about. That’s why we always put friends and family at the core of this experience. Studies have shown that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and makes us happier.
Recently, however, we have received messages from our community that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – are overwhelming (to the point of disappearing) the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.
It’s easy to understand how we got here. Videos and other public content have grown dramatically on Facebook in recent years. As there is more public content (posts from businesses) than posts from our friends and family members, the balance of content in the News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can be useful for – helping us connect with each other.
We feel a responsibility to ensure that our services are not only fun, but also positive for people’s wellbeing. We have therefore carefully studied this trend by looking to academic research and conducting our own research with leading experts in universities.
The survey results show that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our wellbeing. We can feel more connected and less lonely and this correlates with long-term happiness and health. On the other hand, passively reading articles or watching videos – even if they are entertaining or informative – may not be as good.
Based on the above, we’re making a major change in how we build Facebook. I’m changing the goal we give our product teams so that they go from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.
We started to make changes in this direction last year, but it will take months for this new focus to make its way into all our products. The first changes you’ll see will appear in your News Feed, where you’ll start to see more from your friends, family and groups.
As we roll out the changes, you’ll see less public content, such as posts from businesses, brands and media. And the public content you’ll see more of will be content that conforms to the new standards – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.
For example, there are many connected communities around TV shows and sports teams. We’ve seen people interact more with live videos than usual. Some news stories help start conversations about important topics. But too often today, watching videos, reading news or getting updates from a page is just a passive experience.
Now, I want to be clear: by making these changes, I expect to reduce the amount of time people spend on Facebook, along with some engagement metrics. But I also expect that the time spent on Facebook will be more useful. And if we do the right thing, I believe that in the long run we will do good for our community and our business.
At its best, Facebook was all about personal connections. By aiming to bring people closer together – whether it’s family and friends, or important moments in the world – we can help ensure that Facebook is a time well spent.”
You can read Mark Zuckerberg’s post.
How do the above affect the Facebook advertising strategy of businesses?
Businesses and brands have so far learned to use Facebook in an easy way as a channel for promotion and advertising.
They would create a page, get a lot of likes and friends, and then “bombard” them with offers, news, videos, announcements about the business.
The posts and videos they uploaded to their page appeared in their friends’ news feeds.
These promotional posts became so numerous, polluting the news feeds of its members, that eventually Facebook began to lose its meaning of connection and contact between friends and family members.
No one is forbidding companies, professionals and brands from continuing the same tactics.
It’s just that after the algorithm changes on Facebook now fewer and fewer of the “friends” (who often paid to get them) will see these promotional posts.
Forget About Like, Vote For, Share With Friends, Comment, Tag
A common tactic of many businesses is to publish Facebook posts that belong to the Click Bait category.
They would make a post with a nice photo and then ask their Facebook page “friends” to take an action to “win” something.
- They were asked to like the page or post.
- They were asked to vote in a ballot.
- They were asked to share the post.
- They were asked to comment on the post.
- They were asked to tag a photo.
With Facebook’s new algorithm, they need to rethink their tactics because posts of this type are not getting the response they used to. The new algorithm that determines what appears in their “friends'” news feeds cuts out these posts.
No matter how much effort and money they have spent to acquire these “friends”, they can no longer take advantage of them.
Forget about simple promotional Facebook posts
If you’ve been making posts that were purely promotional until now, you need to rethink your tactics.
On Facebook no foreign posts of the form:
DO THIS
CALL ME
These may have been working until a while ago and were seen by many of your page “friends”.
But with the change in the News Feed algorithm you will notice that posts of this style have less and less impact. Fewer and fewer people see them and fewer and fewer people react. The business is losing.
Forget about simple promotional videos on Facebook
How many businesses have not relied on posting videos on their website to attract “friends” to their business.
They relied on the fact that “friends” of the business page would see the video ad in their News Feed and react to it.
As you may have already guessed, with the changes in the algorithm, this form of projection has gone to hell.
The new algorithm prioritises Live videos over traditional videos.
What should I do? What form of advertising is working on Facebook as of 2018?
Facebook since 2018 with the changes it made to the News Feed algorithm has changed the way businesses can use it to advertise.
The old techniques do not perform as well. And as time goes on they will perform less and less.
Businesses can no longer rely on what they used to know. They have to adapt.
I don’t think there is a magic solution that fits all businesses.
For each business, depending on the means, resources and money available, the recipe is different.
The general guidelines are:
Change the way you write your posts. Make them more friendly.
Use Live Video posts instead of traditional videos.
Don’t do a lot of promotional posts unless you have something important to say.
If you want to promote a post, take advantage of the advertising or promotional solutions offered by Facebook.
We can help
We can help you adapt to the new reality and environment of Facebook.
Let’s look at the way you have operated up to now.
To suggest new strategies so that you don’t lose the valuable Likes you have painstakingly acquired.
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