THE DECLINE IN FACEBOOK REACH

Fear has been struck into the hearts of marketers and Facebook fans all over the world. Facebook reach is falling yet again. Changes to the algorithm, yet again, has marketers worrying and frantically working on solutions to get around the roadblocks the new algorithm has enforced. These changes are rolling out this month.

Two social media market leaders have a differing take:

Social media examiner is at the forefront of the social media firestorm expressing deep concern on the impact these changes will have on how we market our pages. With their CEO, Michael Stelzner, referring it to “Facebook Apocalypse”.

Mari Smith ‘The Queen of Facebook’ is playing it down considerably more by telling people to stop being so reliant on Facebook. Calling it ‘rented land’ and suggesting not to put all your ‘eggs’ in the one social media basket.

Facts about Changes to Facebook News Feed

as reported by Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s Head of News Feed.

Fact 1:                Space in the News Feed is limited

Fact 2:                There will be less public content shown, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses

Fact 3:                Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease.

Fact 4:                Over the next few months, Facebook will be making updates to ranking.

Let’s Start with Facebook Reach

You may have received a message from Facebook on your page today (I did) explaining that the way ‘organic’ (ie non paid) reach is recorded has changed. Something along the lines of:

This means that Facebook reach stats will now be based on views from people refreshing their news feed and the post being placed in their feed. Which is the same way they report the stats on paid ads. So they are just making the reach on both consistent.

I wouldn’t be too concerned about this change. Although you might be startled by a drop in reported organic reach, the number of people who actually see your post should be the same. It’s just the reporting that’s different. Reach isn’t tangible, it’s the action on the post, the likes, comments, clicks and shares that count.

So what does that mean?

Simply that we need to think of ways to get people talking both to each other and to you and engaging with your posts.  According to Adam Mosseri:

“Facebook will prioritise posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people”

which translates as posts with longer comments will receive more reach in newsfeeds than shorter comments!

How Do We Do This?

According to Mari Smith, Pages with consistently higher than average organic reach are likely due to many factors, such as:

• the perfect mix of highly relevant content,
• the right frequency of posting,
• the best mix of content types, e.g. more video and Live broadcasts,
• responding and connecting with fans,
• …all of which can result in a highly engaged audience, many with notifications enabled.

However, she also says that these pages are the outliers, the ones outside the norm. This may be the case, but it is definitely what we should all be striving for with our Facebook marketing.

Mari also recommends using Facebook Messenger marketing as Facebook are giving it top priority. Reach is close to 100% for marketers on Messenger (at the moment!)

Less Public Content. 

(This means from Businesses).

Let’s start with VIDEO.

Video is considered ‘passive’ content as people do not interact with it. Which means it will get less priority in the news feed.

Facebook Live

Social Media Examiner’s Michael Stelzner suggests to use Facebook Live – as it often leads to discussion and get on average, six times as many interactions as regular video.

Updates

It may be true (according to some marketers) that Facebook is going to roll out a separate newsfeed, like Explore, in the near future. So we’ll have to watch this space!

In the meantime what can we do now? Well I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here. Buffer have written a fabulous post on How to Succeed on the Newsfeed, it’s a must read…Facebook Algorithm

As a Small Business Owner, What’s Your Take on All This?

Have you noticed a dramatic decline in your Facebook Reach?

Are you considering adding another platform to your marketing mix?

I’d be interested to know.  Please comment below.