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New Facebook Page Updates That Affect Your Marketing Strategy
Facebook is at it again with waves of changes that can affect the way we approach Facebook page marketing. In true Facebook fashion, they made a ton of updates, then they told everyone about them. There was no warning, no beta testing, nothing.
If you’ve logged into your personal Facebook profile recently, you’ve been bombarded with a bunch of pop-up boxes highlighting the new changes. On the personal side, new Facebook changes are often more annoying than anything else, but on the business side, they have a significant impact on a brand’s social media marketing strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest changes and how they may affect your Facebook marketing strategy.
Interactions Vs. Amount of “Likes”
Many of the changes affecting Facebook pages have to do with Facebook forcing page administrators to buy into their philosophy of focusing on increasing interactions and conversations instead of the amount of “likes” to the page. One major update that reflects this is the “talking about this” metric that now resides below the “people like this” metric on the left-hand side of your Facebook page. See the screenshot below:
This number is getting pulled from Facebook Insights which indicates how many “likes” and comments your Wall content has received in the past. Facebook is basically exposing how much interaction is taking place on pages. I agree with what they’re trying to do, but it’s very hard to “increase interaction” when the page doesn’t have many “likes” to begin with. There needs to be a balance. The sole strategy for your page should not always be to increase “likes”. Build a strong core of fans that follow you on Facebook, then create interesting content, exciting contests, and enticing promotions that encourage engagement and conversation about your brand.
Page Walls Now Open To The Public
I was unaware of this change until I started researching the new Facebook page updates, and it shocked me when I read about it. This can be good and bad. Our clients’ pages have already seen the negative affects of this with some inappropriate posts from spammers. Still, I don’t think this is a reason to close off your page to your fans. The emphasis on interactions is too great.
Newsfeed and Ticker Changes Affecting Fan Page Marketing
Facebook has changed the personal newsfeed and added a live ticker of status updates from your closest friends and family. Facebook has gone even farther in trying to predict or make educated guesses on what content you want to see most based on what your social circle likes the most. The difference now is that they make it easier for you to tell Facebook what content you like and don’t like and who you want to get it from.
The problem Facebook page administrators face is that Facebook has more control than ever before to choose whether or not to deliver your page’s status update. The evidence that these updates are causing a reduction in visits and page views is mostly anecdotal right now. I have seen isolated situations with some of our clients’ pages, but it’s tough to make a conclusion without stacking them up against a larger pool of Facebook pages.
This is yet another change that puts more and more emphasis on posting engaging content that prompts users not only to “like” it, but post comments as well.
Should You Post More Frequently?
The name of the social game is not quantity, but quality. Because of these changes, you may want to increase the frequency of posting by 10 to 20%, while focusing more on content that forces fans to interact with it, such as:
- Create polls with “Facebook Questions”
- Post photos of events, new products, or random fun things happening around the office
- Kick it old school with some Mad Libs. Example: My favorite place to eat in New York City is ____________ .
- Post about current events and hot topics in your industry
Facebook has come a long way since I started managing Facebook pages. Some of their updates make a lot of sense, and some make no sense at all. The main takeaway from these updates is that we need to stop focusing on quantity of “likes” and content updates, and start focusing more on interactions and conversation. After all, it’s called a “social network” for a reason.
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October 20, 2011 at 2:23 pm
An interesting article, thank you for taking the time to write this.
Can you visage a scenario where brand pages gain more power to promote their business, perhaps shifting the balance in their favour. The recent changes clearly support social users from the general public and have made the promotion of company products harder to pass on to the public. Twitter for example has a great network system where any deals and products can be circulated at ease via # words, @mentions and RT’s.
I’m a Social Media Executive and I’m keen to see how this develops.
Thanks.
Adam.
October 24, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Adam, I definitely understand what you’re saying. Facebook is definitely more closed off to the public when it comes to making your brand/product available to anyone to share with. This is why some brands/businesses have more success with Twitter and others with Facebook. I think it depends on the industry and what your goals are for social media. I find that Facebook is much better for cultivating a strong core of brand advocates, whereas, Twitter is great for mass exposure and the possibility of a larger viral snowball.
Thanks for the comment!
November 16, 2011 at 10:39 am
[...] The new Facebook pages mean that if fans aren’t interacting with your page, they’ll see your updates less often, so the quality of your content is a consideration [...]