What the Facebook News Feed Changes Mean for Businesses

Chances are you've heard that Facebook is changing their News Feed settings to improve the consumer experience based on feedback from user surveys.

Starting sometime this month, Facebook will be reducing visibility of posts that are "too professional."  Moving forward, Pages that post promotional content can expect their organic reach to fall significantly over time. So, what can you do about it?

Employ a social media strategy that generates content that is not deemed "too promotional" according to Facebook's algorithms. Apparently, surveys have  found three things that make organic posts seem "too promotional" to users:

1. Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app
2. Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context
3. Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads

Okay, Facebook, challenge accepted.

In theory, this would mean that witty, creative, insightful posts would continue to garner the same reach as they have in the past. Of course, many people suspect Facebook is simply rewarding companies who spend advertising dollars since that's now the only way to ensure your content is being viewed by your followers and potential fans. 

The reality is that while I suspect that was a huge bonus for Facebook, I highly doubt that this is a purely self-serving move. As a consumer, I completely support algorithms that improve the user experience and ensure brands are proving me useful content in my News Feed. Of course, I am very likely to unfollow any company that abuses the privilege of appearing in my feed, and one hopes that concern is enough reason for businesses to hold themselves to higher standards of content creation.

How Many People See Your Content?

Mitch Joel published a really interesting post on his Six Pixels blog, (Almost) No One Is Seeing Your Content.

As a marketer using social media as a platform for dissemination, nearly nothing scares me as much as the idea that my message is lost and never reaches my intended audience.  The unfortunately reality is my fear is most likely a reality.

"We used to tell ourselves a very powerful narrative about how the cream always rises to the top, and the struggle that most brands face when it comes to content marketing and social media is that they struggle to find a true sense of human-ness in the content that they are creating... so many brands actually have great content, but have a sub-par content distribution strategy where the vast majority of the work resides behind their own walled garden."

Mitch makes the rather disappointing observation that despite the money and time brands pour into social media marketing, their messages are filtered by third parties (the platforms themselves) and are often never seen by their fans and followers.  

As a marker that really bursts my bubble.  As an individual it is even more upsetting.  I hated when Facebook decided that it was only going to show certain people in your newsfeed based on who you interacted with most frequently.  The whole reason I am friends with people on Facebook is so I can follow along with their lives as much or as little as I want to.  I now am completely cut off from several of my connections and might not even remember that we're Facebook friends.  I was so much happier when I could control my newsfeed by "show more" and "show less" and specifying what kinds of news I wanted to see, e.g. (relationship status updates, photos, etc.)  The sad part for me, is that the social media platforms are so worried about becoming irrelevant they keep tweaking their algorithms and I worry they are going to end up like Joan Rivers' face... too altered too remotely resemble what they started with, which was what drew the users in the first place.

Ken Mueller Sparks Google+ v. Facebook Debate

Ken Mueller wrote a very open letter to Mark Zuckerberg requesting that Facebook stop tweaking their newsfeed algorithm and let users shape their own experience.  I personally think Mueller makes some great arguments as to why this is a win-win situation for everyone - users, businesses, Facebook, etc - and I encourage you to read the letter in it's entirety.

What sparked the latest flare up in the Google+ v. Facebook debate was a post by Mueller in the comments section of his blog.  Mueller said, "I still think you can do a lot more on FB due to the sheer number of people. My clients' customers aren't on G+, at least not as regular users. And they don't want to be. Most people, I think, still want to be on FB."

People went on to comment that their client base was engaging just fine on Google+, an article was written supporting Google+ over Facebook as the social media marketing platform of the future (Google Plus vs Facebook: Why G+ Should Dominate Your 2014 Marketing Strategy), and debate among social media specialists sparked anew.  

What I can't understand is why anyone would suggest that Google+ dominate your 2014 social media marketing strategy.  We call it a "marketing mix" for a reason!  

Mueller never goes so far as to say that Google+ isn't a strong platform, he merely says he isn't going to abandon Facebook because his clients' target audience is more engaged on Facebook than Google+. 

I can related to that!  My experience with Google+ has been very challenging to say the least.  Although I have many friends who are registered with the G+ platform, most of them continue to use only Facebook to connect with each other.  

Even still, as a marketing professional with some knowledge of search engine optimization, I think it's pretty intuitive that Google will favor Google+ engagement in it's search engine results pages.  In fact, there is already proof that this happens, some of which is mentioned in the Google Plus v. Facebook article.  I encourage my clients to incorporate Google+ into a robust integrated marketing social media strategy that includes other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  With a holistic marketing strategy in place, we see the greatest return on our 

8 Tips To Maximize Your Facebook ROI

Some businesses are social media marketing mavens while others are scrambling to catch up.  Facebook recently put together a list of eight best practices they find most successful local businesses are doing on Facebook.  Although the tips were probably written for B2C social media, almost all of these tips can be used for larger companies and 2-7 even apply to B2B marketing strategies, so take a look at these tips and good luck in your Facebook marketing!

Eight Things Successful Businesses Do on Facebook

How to Increase Engagement on Twitter in One Easy Step

Twitter has announced that it is adding image previews!

As with all social media platforms, twitter is adding more rich media to it's feed.  Instead of having to expand tweets to see media, Twitter has now announced a new feature where media that can be viewed directly in the stream without clicking to view.

Sometimes we forget that Twitter is more than 140 characters, but it's beneficial to increase our use of rich media on Twitter.

On social media platforms, posts with rich media have significantly higher engagement metrics than text-only posts.  On Twitter, this could equate to more retweets, shares, favorites and mentions.

This is not an excuse to get media happy - you don't need to include graphics and video in every tweet just as you don't need to post photos and videos every time you update your Facebook status.  What it does mean, is that a strategic use of rich media in your Twitter strategy can be very beneficial in amplifying your message and getting your brand more recognition.

How Much Social Media Posting Is Too Much?

I came across a blog post by Mitch Joel today that has me a little worried.  Here's the beginning paragraph of the blog, Your Brand Is Tweeting Too Much:

"How much is too much Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest for a brand?

It's getting ugly out there. Brands and fellow agencies will often ask me the same question: how often should we be on _____________ (insert your favorite social media channel here)? In the past, research be damned, my response would typically be: so long as it's quality and your audience cares, shares and keeps on about it, don't listen to the research reports or what any pundit has to tell you. The unique pulse between and a brand and its consumers is highly personal and unique on a case-by-case basis.

I may be wrong."

Not only do I hold Mitch Joel among the most well respected digital marketing and social media marketing experts in the world, I shared his view about how frequently brands should post on their social media platforms.

All the points Mitch makes are very relevant - I certainly can't name one single friend I want to hear from 30 times a week, let alone a brand I want to have that much interaction with.

It's time to reign it in and be more judicious about my posting.  My biggest offense is without a doubt Twitter, and I ascribed to the idea that the rapidly updating feed on Twitter is more forgiving of message overload than some of the other social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Social Media: Where Do I Start?

There's no simple recipe for social media success... well there is, but it's not really a secret and it's definitely not a shortcut.

When people ask me where they should start with their social media marketing plan, I tell them to find out where their audience is and start there.  If your clients are big Twitter users, your first social media platform should be Twitter.  If your target audience is engaged on Facebook, your first social media platform should be, you guessed it, Facebook.

It's not rocket science, but it can take a little leg work.  You can do a social media analysis to see where your competitors are online, what their presence is like, and then make a judgement call as to whether or not you want to go down the same path.  You should also research where your clients are congregating and take that into consideration.

Ultimately, you'll have to tweak your social media marketing mix so that it's always reaching the target audience you define.  You may find that one or more of the social media platforms you launch doesn't fit the needs of your clients, is a waste of your resources or just isn't a good platform for your brand's message.  In that case, it may be time to throw in the social media marketing towel.