Find out the key algorithm changes that have taken place across Facebook, why they are occurring and their likely impact. Understand the strategies that other organisations are adopting to overcome the algorithm challenges as well as providing helpful tips on managing your social media and content strategies into the future.
Facebook Algorithm Changes: What Marketers Need To Know
1. W H AT ’ S H A P P E N E D T O
FA C E B O O K ?
T H E K E Y C H A N G E S M A R K E T E R S N E E D T O K N O W
L A U R A B O U N D Y
2. AGENDA
• Introductions
• Quick look back in time
• Why use Facebook?
• Announcement
– What
– Why
– Effect and impact
• Overcoming the change
• Other organisations’ strategies
• Tips for your future strategy
• Questions
3. INTRODUCTIONS
• Laura Boundy
• Freelance Marketing Professional
• Over 11 years experience
• Public sector, publishing, SMEs
• Marketing geek
• Digital marketing and social media
• Previous OXCOM student
laurajbound
y
@dozzieb LauraBoundyMarketing
4. FACEBOOK HISTORY
• Founded 2004 – thefacebook.com
• Limited to Harvard students initially
• Higher education institutions in Boston, Ivy League schools and Stanford University
• Late 2007 Facebook had 100,000 business pages (started as groups)
• UK in 2007
• 2 billion active users (June 2017)
• 5 million businesses advertising each month
5. WHY USE FACEBOOK AS A
MARKETING TOOL?
• Over 2 billion active users (307 million Europe)
• Age 25 to 34 is the most common age demographic
• Five new profiles created every second
• Every 60 seconds: 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are
updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded
• 42% of marketers say Facebook is critical or important to their business
(Source: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/)
6.
7. FACEBOOK – NEWS FEED VALUES
• Friends and family come first
• A platform for all ideas
• Authentic communications
• You control your experience
• Constant iteration
8. THE ANNOUNCEMENT – IN A NUT
SHELL
• Major Facebook algorithm change
• Will transform the way businesses use the platform
• Heading back to its social network roots
• Focus on posts from friends and family
• Two major changes announced this year
– News from trusted sources
– More meaningful content
9. THE ANNOUNCEMENT
• “Helping you find relevant content to help you have more meaningful social
interactions”
• More from friends, family and groups
• Less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media
• Public content you will see will encourage ‘meaningful interactions’
10. THE ANNOUNCEMENT
• Not a passive experience – engaged community
and personal connections
• Time on Facebook to be well spent
• Page posts will still appear in News Feed (not in
an Explore tab as per tests)
11. “At its best, Facebook has always been about personal
connections. By focusing on bringing people closer
together - whether it's with family and friends, or around
important moments in the world - we can help make sure
that Facebook is time well spent.”
Mark Zuckerberg
12. ANNOUNCEMENT – CONT.
• Prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions
• Predict which posts you might want to interact with and put higher in feed
• Back-and-forth discussion
– a post from a friend seeking advice
– a friend asking for recommendations for a trip
– a news article or video prompting lots of discussion
13. • Less space for content from businesses and organisations
• Pages may see their reach, engagement and referral traffic decrease
• Impact will vary from page to page
– type of content produced
– how people interact with it
ANNOUNCEMENT – CONSEQUENCES
14. • Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to
or comment on could see the biggest drops
• Pages whose posts prompt conversations between
friends will be less effected
ANNOUNCEMENT – CONSEQUENCES
15. OVERCOMING THE CHANGE
• Page posts that generate conversation shown higher in the feed
• Live video
– Six times as many interactions as normal videos
• Videos prompt discussion among followers
• Celebrity posts
• Groups
• Local businesses
– Connect with communities
• News starts conversations on important issues
17. SEE FIRST
• Can people still see posts from the pages they follow at the top of News Feed?
• Yes. People who want to see more posts from pages they follow can choose ‘See First’
in news feed preferences to make sure they always see posts from their favourite
pages
18. OTHER ORGANISATIONS’ STRATEGIES
• Live “Ask Me Anything” session about a new product rather than product picture with
a “Buy Now” link
• Facebook Groups
• Deals/offers/voucher codes
• Interviews
• Product launches
• Facebook Local
20. TIPS FOR THE FUTURE
• Warn followers of the changes and tell them about “see first”
– Use video
• Focus on quality over quantity
• Use Insights
– post the right content to the right people at the right time
• Facebook groups
21. TIPS FOR THE FUTURE
• Motivate followers to share
– Facebook posts
– Blog posts
• Test
• Monitor and measure
– Learn, adapt and change
22. TIPS FOR THE FUTURE
• Publish less content, not more
• Advertising for awareness and promotions
• Keep an eye on growing areas (chatbots)
• Create personas
23. TIPS FOR THE FUTURE
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!
• Digital marketing
– Email marketing
– Other social platforms
– SEO
– Blog posts
– Video
24. SUMMARY
• Focus on friends and family
• Social first
• Meaningful interactions
• Expect to see a drop in engagement, reach and impressions
• Understand you audience
• Build a community
• Advertising
• More than Facebook
History - sets agenda for why they're doing what they're doing
Why bother when it changes so often and it's another job
Effect on FB page - not whole business
Facebook user since 2007
Fallen out of love with it as a user and professionally (insta and twitter) – too unpredictable, black magic, algorithm changes, older audience, scrolling for the sake of it, not valuable
Mum – share if you think….engagement bait, country cottages – WANT to see content
Huge audience
Engaged community
Local community engagement
42% - lower than expected (not relevant to business, lack of skills/resources, lack of understanding)
Penetration in Wales – 74%
Still more potential audience in each country (age dependent)
Active users – key (logged in in the last month)
Buffer article – all news feed changes and how they will effect metrics – down down down
The main objective is to connect people with their friends and family. So posts from friends and family are prioritized. After those posts, Facebook found that people want their feed to inform and entertain them.
Facebook welcomes all ideas while making sure that everyone feels and is safe. They aim to deliver stories that each individual wants to see the most, based on their actions and feedback.
Facebook prioritizes genuine stories over misleading, sensational, and spammy ones.
Individuals know themselves best. So Facebook creates features (such as unfollow and see first) to let people customize their Facebook experience.
Facebook strives to constantly collect feedback and improve the platform.
Effects all business – small, medium, large (Kate up to Coca Cola)
Good for users to connect – mental health. Academic research
Zuckerberg said because of that, news posts will make up 4% of the news feed, down from 5% today.
News from publications that the community rates as trustworthy
News that people find informative
News that is relevant to people’s local community
Users surveyed to see if source is trusted
Big focus on ‘more meaningful content’
Audience lost faith in Facebook and detracted to use other social media, became less active and didn’t post as much
Lost trust in FB due to US election fake news, Russian involvement – obvious strategic move for FB
Creating communities of people with common interests
Facebook don’t want it to be a passive experience,
Aimless endless scrolling – no engagement
Bored, time waster
Mark Zuckerberg wants people’s time on Facebook to be well spent – not just an audience of lurkers
Previous testing in some countries to put all business/organisation posts in an ‘explore’ tab – Pages that you might be interested in based on your page likes etc. On ios app – still there but not going to only show the pages you like
Huge strategic change
Less obviously about advertising, business and profit margins
Step back? Or cunning step forward to make businesses spend more on advertising as their reach and engagement drops
Advertisers – not been a positive reaction to the change
suggests that Facebook is looking to lure advertisers to switch their marketing spend from TV to Facebook
The days of organic reach are definitely over. Businesses already have to invest in ads on Facebook to get their content in front of their audiences. But there will be fewer opportunities to buy ads, so the prices will be higher.
In some cases, I actually see Facebook as a news-gathering channel like Twitter and a way for people to market their business or news versus endless pics of families and babies. I personally use it for news and updates, not constant communication.”
Prediction – based on previous interactions, interactions from friends/family, more engagement e.g.
More space for friends and family will mean less space for us
Reach, impressions, engagement will drop – consider reporting to senior teams – metrics and KPIs – no longer about followers and page likes….engagement is key
Example – clients: previously just sales posts, now third party content interesting to audience and sales posts – not enough for future as strategy will need to change
Pages such as celebs, news pages (BBC news), buffer – already lots of engagement, comments – so won’t be effected
Brands need to take quick action with their Facebook content strategies to dig in to the data on “who” their fans are and what makes them tick so that brand content is synonymous with relevant content.”
Engagement bait – demoted in newsfeed. Announced in 2017 – start of Facebook clean up
Post will be demoted in newsfeed
Future posts will be effected too
Important feature - can tell people about it via video rather than posting about it
Good news for Mum!
Facebook local – updated app (recommendations from friends/family for local restaurants, bars etc)
Local aggregates Facebook’s database of 70 million business pages as well as reviews and check-ins. Via the app, consumers can view recommended bars, restaurants and attractions, look at maps and see nearby friends.
UK launched – combination of yelp, foursquare, FB events app (tripadvisor)
It is more crucial than ever for businesses to integrate Messenger and initiate one-on-one conversations.
Community - if you’re about to launch a campaign, you could involve authentic storytelling that features members of your community. This way they feel part of your brand and they become more eager to share the campaign with their friends.
Share - create a strong blog on your company website with interesting information about your industry, customers, products or other relevant content. You should actively promote your blog to your existing customers through newsletters, in-store experiences and social media. You may even want to consider putting a modest ad budget against promoting your content on several social networks (not just Facebook).
The most important thing brands need to remember is that Facebook is all about the people. Show your human side and create content that resonates your target audience. If you manage to develop a relationship with your audience, then you shouldn’t be afraid of any upcoming changes.
focus on more meaningful content that reinforces key brand messages.
Chat bots and messaging should now be a definite focus – one on one interactions
Shouldn’t have to say it but hopefully your digital comms strategy involves more than just Facebook
Insta, pinterest – great for visual industries artists, cafes, retail, merchandise, products, events, interior design, florist
Twitter – source of content, engage with an audience one to one, quick, 280 characters
LinkedIn – professional, networking
YouTube/Vimeo – video