Growing Up With Facebook (And Keeping Up With The Changes)

Since Facebook introduced the Like button in 2010, getting likes from users has become social marketing’s Holy Grail. Companies were now able to easily communicate with their fans, on their own turf,  without spending virtually any money.

Two years later, Facebook has perfected the means to enable marketers to reach their target audience in News Feed, via paid ads.  Not free, but a very useful marketing tool.  After all, we don’t have to be mathematical geniuses to realize that the amount of content published is increasing at a faster rate than people's ability to consume it, more and more brands are fighting to be visible on a very limited space, and willing to pay the price.

A recent document released by Facebook called “Generating business results on Facebook”, clearly states that the organic reach will drop and “to maximize delivery of your message in News Feed”, marketers should “consider using paid distribution, as it enables you to reach people beyond your fan base and move beyond the organic competition”.

Derek Muller, the founder of Veritasium, states that  "The problem with Facebook is that it's keeping things from you". His arguments comes from the experience that he had with his own Facebook page that has 118.000 fans. "The last time I shared a video on there, it only went in the news feeds of about 9,000 people," he claims, a number that is less than 8 percent of his fan base. "This continues the downward trend in numbers I've been seeing."

The problem for most marketers is that Facebook’s news feed algorithm is restricting the reach of posts that get little interactions from friends and fans and promotes posts that  get a big number of likes, comments or shares.

The average user receives up to 1500 posts in their news feed. So, clearly some filtering is required. If the content is not receiving the desired attention from your followers organically, the only option left is to promote the post by paying. Of course, the initial investment in the content and offer to be promoted is still of the outmost importance. Paid Ads will just ensure your content gets in front of your desired audience.

To develop the perfect formula for a Facebook Ad campaign you have to make sure that your message is grounded in your campaign objectives:

•   Create compelling content and include creative and engaging ideas
•   Offer relevant content will make people spend their time looking at your ad
•   Add a bold picture or a video to grab attention
•   Be authentic and synchronize with the brand positioning and tone
•   Use a simple, short and convincing message to ensure your message stands out in the crowd

All these new changes aren’t necessarily a reason to worry, it is all about evolution. Facebook has now grown up, and if it has become more about the media and less about social, it just reflects us: we all need to pay the mortgage. The organic reach will not completely disappear,  your amazing content may still go viral; paid ads will give it a helping hand.   We just need to find the balance and take advantage of both. We could say that change is not good or evil, only change.