Big change coming up in the Facebook News Feed: its new algorithm will now prioritise friends and family publications over the brands and publishers ones. Therefore, their reach, the time spent on their publications and their traffic will be reduced. Moreover, pages generating low engagement will be penalised.
Why this change?
According to Facebook, an active use of social media based on interactions with people is beneficial for the user’s well-being. On the contrary, a passive use, watching videos and reading articles, even if those are interesting, may be harmful. Mark Zuckerberg said the goal is to “have more significant interactions” and, therefore optimise the News Feed to improve the user experience.
That’s why Facebook, in recent years, has been pursuing a strategy aiming at prioritising family and friends over brands and publishers in the News Feed. As a result, Facebook’s traffic share for media has been decreasing, pushing them to invest in paid publications. Facebook even launched a test in 6 countries, including Serbia and Sri Lanka, in which all the non-sponsored content published by brands and media had been removed from the user’s main newsfeed. User engagement dropped from 60 to 80%. Fortunately, in this case, the change should not be as radical.
How to keep your visibility with your fans on Facebook?
Don’t worry, there is still a chance to keep your visibility in your fan’s news feeds without necessarily having to pay to sponsor your content.
The best way is to create organic and qualitative engagement between your users. Indeed, Facebook will prioritise public content generating interactions between users. Beware, we are talking about organic interactions, as artificial engagement such as “tag your best friend”, “like if you are a Harry Potter fan”, or “share and attempt to win a trip to Paris”, is penalised by Facebook since past December.
How to boost organic engagement between the users?
There are many ways to increase the number of shares and comments on your publications. The key is to create unique, relevant content that will engage users.
Interactive formats such as tests, polls or contests will still work, but they have to be highly qualitative. You will need more than just encourage the users to comment on the post. Launch original campaigns that will interest your users and make them ‘spontaneously’ click and head to your website:
For example, this Isilines campaign allows users to participate each day in a jackpot to attempt to win prizes. It allows them to generate traffic on their page every day.
A contest made by Planet Parfum to attempt to win its products via a memory game.
Even better: do not depend on Facebook anymore to reach your audience
Nevertheless, Facebook pages continue to see their organic reach decrease. In order to regain control and no longer depend on Facebook to reach the right audience, it is important to create your own database.
The good news: these interactive campaigns will also be very useful for collecting data and, as you go along, segment your profiles via identification forms or thanks to the responses of participants to your campaigns. You can then use your brand new segment to send targeted emails, for instance.
