Facebook is always making changes to the look, feel and back-end and the system and profiles. This article came out yesterday on HubSpot about 5 Ways You Can Capitalize on Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm Update We wanted to touch on this real quick, as a social media management company we are always making sure with the tools and strategy we are using that our clients posts are coming up in peoples news feeds on a daily basis. This can be a very difficult task to achieve for some people.
Here are the 5 steps HubSpot talks about to read this article in full please click here
5 Marketing Takeaways From the Facebook News Feed Update
1) If you’re using Facebook for lead generation, you need to make sure that every post counts.
With the new Story Bumping feature (which resurfaces older posts that you may have “missed” to the top of the News Feed), you have even more opportunities for your content to be resurfaced to your Fans — that is, if it’s good.
We’re guessing that visual content will be even more important than it already was, as photos get 53% more likes than the average post — so figure out how you can make the most of your images and cover photo updates to benefit your Facebook lead generation. If you’re trying to reach your Fans in order to generate leads, really think about what content would be most engaging; you might end up staying in the News Feed for longer than you used to. (And if you need a few ideas to jump-start your lead generation creativity, check out this blog post.)
2) But if your Facebook posts flop quickly, you’ll have more chances to get it right.
On the flip side of Story Bumping, if your content isn’t performing as well, it will be pushed down much more quickly. While at first glance this means that your content must perform well — and perform well fast — to remain in the News Feed, it actually is a positive thing. According to EdgeRank Checker, Story Bumping will decrease the effect of Time Decay — which means if you’re swinging and missing with Facebook content, you’ll have more opportunities to test content to engage with your audience.
3) At the same time, you could also get knocked for posting a flurry of updates … so find a delicate balance for your Facebook posting schedule.
That being said, once Facebook gets the Chronological by Last Actor feature right, flurries of updates will get grouped together in the News Feed … which means your individual post engagement (and potential for lead generation) could decrease. With this new change, you should really monitor your posting frequency to make sure you’re not posting too much. Plan out spaces between your social media updates accordingly and then test to see if you can adjust the timing between posts to increase engagement and conversions.
The good news about the overall algorithm update is that it won’t help people who send out spam update after spam update, as they’ll get removed again and again from the News Feed.
4) Throw out impression-based metrics: Engagement is king.
The whole Last Actor part of the algorithm is a huge indication of the core metric Facebook values: engagement. So while “post reach” is an interesting metric you may want to keep an eye on, Facebook seems to care more about people actually interacting with your Facebook content. This is a huge win for small businesses or companies who have small Facebook Company Page followings — focus on engaging people with your posts, and you should appear in their News Feeds more often.
5) Supplement your efforts with Facebook advertising to potentially increase engagement.
If you’re trying to ramp up your engagement metric but your current fans’ engagement isn’t enough, you might want to consider testing Facebook Ads. They could help you reach a new audience that would love to engage with you — again, taking advantage of the Last Actor metric. Also, keep in mind that the Story Bumping feature does not affect ads on the News Feed — ads are determined by a different algorithm. If you need help getting started with Facebook ads, check out this free ebook.
The moral of the story all comes down to one thing: with all of these changes, you need to test what works on your Company Page with your Fans. What works for one marketer in one business could completely fail in another. So get testing — with the right data, you’ll start increasing your Facebook engagement and leads in no time!
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