Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement lays a foundation for how Facebook’s News Feed will operate in 2018. The change? Less organic content from businesses, brands, and media and more content that encourages meaningful interactions between users. To a business, this can seem threatening. Will this minimize my Page’s visibility? How will this affect my organic reach? Is there content I should avoid posting altogether? We are going to deep dive into what this means for the hospitality industry and how you can not only adapt, but thrive.
With All These Changes, Is It Worth Continuing to Post on Facebook?
In one word: yes. In a recent Blue Magnet blog post, we noted that Facebook has 38% more monthly active users than YouTube, 158.75% more than Instagram, and a staggering 527.27% more than Twitter. Similar to all digital marketing channels, Facebook is constantly evolving; and keeping up with their updates is a matter of understanding what they have changed and what you can do to keep pace.
The When and Why
Changes to Facebook’s News Feed are already in effect. The announcement came on January 12, 2018, but the new algorithm is still being rolled out. You may have already noticed changes to your feed, like seeing more posts from your friends, family, and groups and less from the Pages you like and/or follow. According to Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s VP of News Feed, “Content that is shared and talked about between friends will grow, and content that is directly consumed from Pages will shrink slightly.” In a recent interview with Wired, Mosseri mentioned several key points:
- You will see more content from friends, family, and groups
- There will be less video
- There will be less content from Pages
- These updates will not affect paid efforts
How Can I Be Sure I Am Still Reaching Potential Guests?
We recently discussed ways to increase engagement across channels, and adhering to the seven tactics mentioned will help to ensure your posts are being seen and that meaningful conversations are happening in the comments. The first step is something you should already be doing while creating content for social: optimizing your content. Always update your link previews and check for errors, poor image quality, correct image size before posting, because if you do not, you will inevitably be called out for it.
