Facebook Changes And What It Means For Your Brand
The hot topic that is burning the mouths of marketers, brands and essentially the entire digital audience is the Zuck’s 2018 revolution that Facebook’s algorithm, as we know it, will be no more. In true CEO form, Zuckerberg took to his platform recently to announce that the direction of Facebook will be shifting back to a more connection focused approach for users.
“We’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to help you have more meaningful social interactions.”
What this ultimately means is that Facebook will now prioritise the content shared by family and friends on users news feeds in an attempt to revive its founding purpose: connecting people. As a result, this means that the exposure and reach that brands and pages used to market themselves will be hidden beneath the masses of selfies and drool-worthy foodie pics.
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
Ultimately, brands and pages are going to see their reach, engagement and watch times decrease depending on the content shared and how users interact with it. While Zuck himself claims it’s Facebook’s way to instil better connections and human interaction back into the digital space, others claim it’s another way for Facebook to push brands further down the funnel of paid Facebook advertising in order to be seen. If these changes are in fact more oriented around Facebook’s advertising profit margin, should brands really be so shocked that after over ten years of free advertising, the algorithm would change to sideline this activity? After all, what other advertising outlets would let your brand reach worldwide consumers, free of charge? None. All this time Facebook hasn’t been the rule, it’s been the exception, and now that it’s changed, so should the marketing strategy of brands!
The next step for brands to overcome these changes and realign their social strategies isn’t to continue dwelling on what once was, but to instead brainstorm what’s to come: How can brands continue to utilize social media platforms without the lingering concern that their time and energy will be wasted or go unseen? Cue suspenseful music. Here at Scrunch, we have developed an entire platform around the answer - Influencer Marketing.
While many have burst into a flame of fury and stress over the changes, social media influencers have welcomed them and rejoiced at their own state of demand. Implementing restrictions on brands organic posts so that they are less visible on a user’s feed means the demand for Influencer campaign collaborations will skyrocket. Partnering with influencers who already have a well established social prominence and a clear understanding of what their audience wants, will side skip the new algorithm restrictions. All the while reaching those sales and engagement goals quicker than other more traditional marketing methods.
So if you are looking to proactively implement new social media measures and to ensure the new Facebook algorithm doesn’t affect your brand’s online presence, Get in Touch to start talking influencer marketing with the experts!
