Facebook Signals Change for 2018
Good for the Facebook Users, but what does it mean for your Business Marketing Strategy?
Facebook changes were announced over the weekend by founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. He stated on his official news feed that Facebook’s focus for 2018 ‘is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.”
He then went on to report, “The first changes you’ll see will be in (your) News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.” This almost instantaneously happened following his post.
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media.”
This is great news for the Facebook Users, it means less advertising disrupting their Facebook experience with friends and family. For a while, I personally noted at least 5 sponsored posts per 1 post from a friend or family member. Over the weekend, this almost seemed reversed.
Although Facebook subscriber-ship has not declined from 2016 -2017 (check out the statistics below), it has not also grown as fast as platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. So like any business, Facebook has venerated a key business rule, making it all about the client, giving them what they want to keep them coming back for more.
More interestingly Zuckerberg has predicted he expects ‘the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable. And if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term too.”
Facebook Changes - Will this excel its growth?
Zuckerberg’s Full Facebook Press Release <
Facebook is still growing!
As at April 2017 – Facebook is still the most popular social network site in the world
1.94 billion active monthly users (up from 1.65 in 2016.)
Facebook still has the most users
Social Media Rankings worldwide:
Facebook 79%
Instagram 32%
Pinterest 29%
LinkedIn 29%
Twitter 24%
Time spent on Facebook is increasing!
In 2016, the average person spent 20 minutes a day on Facebook.
In 2017 this increased to 40 minutes a day.
Mark Zuckerberg has predicted this now may decline in 2018 as are people
So what does Facebook Changes mean for Facebook Pages & the business owner?
You need to get smarter about the content of your posts! It’s now not about the quantity but the quality of your Posts. You need to give your followers content that will engage them and a reason to choose to ‘Follow’ and ‘See First’ your posts.
Zuckerberg said himself “And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
What the changes mean:
Video watch time will decrease.
Reach will decrease.
Referral traffic will decrease.
If you use a scheduling software, leading experts advise to stop. Again it’s not about 10 posts a day, it’s about the quality and interaction. Your posts will be treated as Spam if you don’t get any interactions. Of note – it will be interesting to see what happens with the Facebook ‘Schedule Post’ Tool in the future.
Organic reach was only 1% in 2017 – I can’t see how this can get much worse, but your paid reach will see a significant drop in engagement and reach results. So the marketing budgets may have to increase!
What will do well on Facebook:
Posts the prompt discussion and comments. If you don’t get any comments, you will see less mileage for your advertising spend. But watch out as the algorithm will know if you are baiting people! So things like ‘Comment below to…’ won’t work as well as it used to. These posts will actually get demoted in the News Feed.
News worthy items and topics that are trending.
Go Live! Live videos through the Video Live Tool, should still do well. It’s all about the here and now!
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