Can you still be successful on Facebook? Yes

I’m seeing this sentiment (or less G-rated versions of it) every day from colleagues, contemporaries and clients. Everyone’s scrambling to figure out why their organic reach and engagement fall off a cliff in the past month.

“What’s up with Facebook?”

I’m seeing this sentiment (or less G-rated versions of it) every day from colleagues, contemporaries and clients. Everyone’s scrambling to figure out why their organic reach and engagement fell off a cliff in the past month.

The answer – Facebook recently adapted their algorithm to adjust the content people are seeing in their newsfeed. The idea being that regular users get more quality content served to them. The affect for marketers – users see less branded content in the process.

If this algorithm sticks, this will reshape everything social marketers have been preaching and creates an entirely new recipe for success on Facebook.

Before, success meant: 

• Post everyday (including weekends)
• Keep it visual (lots of images)
• Find your voice and stick with it
• Keep things light, short and too point for the most visibility

Now the game has changed. And while it’s really early to point to any one way to be affective, it seems now like the recipe is more like: 

• Pick 2, maybe 3 posts each week
• Boost your posts with a dedicated ad spend 
• Hope that post engagement turns into brand awareness and community growth.

Clearly things are shifting for a pay-to-play model, and how Facebook runs their platform (a free one) is completely up to them. It could even be argued marketers and brands were getting a free ride up until now and presented with this new model many smaller players are going to opt out of Facebook completely. The frustration I’m hearing from people is the almost secretive way this was rolled out. A little more transparency might have gone a long way.

What do you think? Are you seeing these same issues? If so, how are you adapting?

Posted by
Gary Edgar
on 29/01/2014