If you have a Facebook brand page chances are your engagement has been steadily dipping over the past several months. You’re not imagining things. Facebook’s mission is to entertain users with interesting content and your brand page may not make the cut. Some even say Facebook deliberately knocks brand page posts down in the news feed.
But why, you ask?
Why should your Facebook page be punished just because you represent a brand?
This is the first question our clients and workshop attendees ask, and often their attitude is that it’s “just not fair.” Advertisers and marketers are quick to swing the bat back at Facebook, blaming the social network for being greedy. This CNET article goes so far as to say, “Facebook is fessing up to holding Page updates hostage in exchange for ransom in the form of more paid advertisements.”
If you skip all of the marketing hype and go directly to the source, Facebook’s statement about organic content and advertising, you will see a reminder to all brands that competition is steep. And if you want your content to rise to the top of the heap, it has to be interesting.
The goal of News Feed is to show people the right content at the right time. To make this happen, we look at who and what people are connected to and how they interact with content — such as how often they click, share, read or comment — to determine what to show. News Feed has to be useful for people and we’re going to continue to improve it so that people have the best experience possible.
The truth is – and don’t shoot the messenger – that like most brands, your Facebook content is probably boring.
Brand pages are competing with personal pages on equal footing. We are all competing to generate content that interests our friends or fans. Facebook has not said in any way that Facebook brand pages will be purposefully shot down. They have only said that Facebook users are sharing more and more interesting content which means your brand page content has more competition.
Facebook’s statement concludes with something overlooked by most marketers, if they don’t crack down on boring content – Facebook will bleed users and that will damage your results on the network.
Ultimately, what’s good for people on Facebook is good for the businesses that use Facebook to reach and engage them. One of the ways we maintain a good balance between the two is by making sure News Feed is as interesting and timely as possible. We’ll continue to provide updates about how News Feed works, so stay tuned.
At Cement Marketing the Facebook pages we fully manage have not seen a dramatic decrease in organic reach.
In fact, in the case of Hocking Hills we have seen the opposite. Since taking over the page in January from another advertising agency in Columbus, we have earned over 1,000 new fans without spending a cent on advertising. This is because our content focuses on the interests of our fans. When needed, we supplement our organic content with advertising, as Facebook suggests. The balance of advertising supporting authentic, engaging content, works.
During our Facebook workshop last month we taught our attendees how to write engaging content on Facebook brand pages. You would have to attend one of our workshops for the full scoop, but the bottom line is this– make the content about your fans and their interests, not yours.
For help with your Facebook marketing just call us – 614-564-9216.