The recent changes made by Facebook are bound to improve user experience but it will make it harder for the startups to operate when faced with the huge investment potential that bigger brands have. While the first News Feed algorithm change was in January, in the past week we clearly noticed that even more posts ended up being labeled as like baits or spam.
We have to understand that the changes do not mean that you are forced to do something that you do not want to. It just means that you are forced to use proper online content marketing strategies. If you did not do this till now, it is time to change. The effective small business manager saves money and only invests when it is needed. If you did not need to invest in Facebook ads before, there is no reason why you should do now.
In order to help you out, here is what you need to stay away from and what you need to do in order to still be competitive on Facebook.
What Should You Avoid?
1. Like Baits
When you ask the visitor to comment, like or share a post and your main goal is to increase your reach artificially, you are not doing something that works now. It is actually considered spam by many people and Facebook changed its algorithm in order to no longer make a post with a huge engagement as being prominent in news feeds. The pages that constantly use like baits will be penalized. However, if your aim is to encourage discussions, this is not something you should worry about. Just make sure that you do not ask for likes!
2. Over-Circulated Content
We are sure that you see many pages that keep resharing the posts that they had a lot of success with. This is not a good idea and Facebook does not like that. You will be affected in the event that you reshare content. This is totally understandable as people do want to see fresh content when they look in their News Feeds.
3. Spam Links
This is not wide-spread but it is something that some marketers do. In the event that you use a text copy and you claim to offer a link with a specific gain for the person that clicks, it is what you have to offer. Facebook managed to implement better technology and pages are penalized when spammy links are used to promote content or make money.
What Should You Do?
If you did not use the promotion methods mentioned above in the past, you should not worry about anything since you are most likely doing a great job. In the event that you use some of these 3, you have to stop as soon as possible.
Engagement Is All About Content!
Most people now think that they do not have a choice and that they are forced to buy Facebook ads or to boost posts. This is completely incorrect. If this is what you feel right now, it is because you most likely did something wrong in the past. If you have a social media manager that complains about the recent Facebook changes and blames the lower engagement on them, you may want to hire someone else.
There is a golden rule in marketing: content is king. The better and more engaging the content is, the more people will come to see it! You should see the entire process as being music. Those songs that are popular will be featured in many places. Those Facebook posts that offer real quality will be liked, shared and will create engagement.
