When it comes to using Facebook for Business in 2015, this quote from Ad Age says it all: “I think marketers are just accepting the fact that Facebook is a place where you pay to play.“
What Changes Will Affect Facebook For Business Users?
The biggest change that the average Facebook Fan Page manager will see will be the massive decrease in the reach of their posts. Post reach is simply the number of people who have seen your post. For 2014, the average post reach percentage was 16%. This means that if you had 10,000 fans and created a post, only 1,600 of your fans would see the post.
In 2015, due to an algorithm change, it is projected that the organic Facebook post reach for a Fan Page will drop from 16% to only 4%! This change means that, in the previous example, only 400 of your 10,000 fans would see an organic, or unpaid post.
This algorithm change is intended to focus on the most commercial of messages that Facebook deems to be “overly promotional.” The reason for this change is that consumers typically don’t like to see these types of promotional messages in their news feed or on their phones.
What is considered to be overly promotional? According to Facebook, it’s one of the following three things:
- Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app
- Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context
- Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads
With this change, Facebook is making it very clear that preserving and protecting the user experience is a priority…
…unless you’re willing to pay for the ad.
Should I Even Bother Using Facebook For Business Anymore?
Given the changes in this algorithm, it can certainly make business owners wonder whether or not organic Facebook posts are dead and whether or not keeping a Fan Page is just a waste of time .
Truth be told, unless you are a publishing or media company, your organic posts will take a significant hit in reach. Although you won’t have as much success on Facebook in 2015, you can still have some by posting, but you’ll have to work harder at putting out ‘quality content’. If you’re in the media or publishing, then quality content, or information that is interesting to a number of people, is simple to create. However, if you’re a small business in a niche industry, you’ll be much less interesting to people.
Ryan Pinkham of Constant Contact offered these 3 tips on determining what types of posts to use:
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What are some of the unique characteristics of these posts?
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Is there a particular type of content that’s performing best (image, video, links, text)?
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What about the copy of the post? Is there anything unique about the topic or language you used?
Identify 3-5 of your top performing posts and use those posts as models for your content in 2015.”
It does make sense to use an organic strategy, but for many businesses who put their entire marketing egg into the Facebook basket, well, you’ll need to start using additional social media sites.
And you’ll be required to start using Facebook’s Ad Platform as well.
Top Tip If You’re Going To Use Facebook For Business In 2015…
Educate yourself on how Facebook Pay Per Click works! Through what other social media channel can your business reach over 1 billion people, target exactly the demographic you want, and have direct communication with your customers?
Facebook’s ad platform allows businesses to target potential customers who use the social network. You are able to target based on age, location, job, marital status, interests, behavior, purchase habits, items purchased in the past, home values, income, education status, and more!
Plus, if you have an email list of your customers, you can create a custom audience… and market to people on Facebook who have similar demographics.
With Facebook Pay Per Click, you’re able to get highly targeted, inexpensive leads to your website/squeeze page quickly… and make any ad copy changes within minutes!
Want to learn more on how to use Facebook Pay Per Click?
==> Watch This Brief Video
Blog Image Courtesy Of: Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo
Nick Bridges
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