What the Facebook Newsfeed Purge means for your business

Zuckerberg’s announcement shook the digital marketing industry as users are expecting one of the biggest changes yet. The Newsfeed Purge is set to roll out over the next months and will favor the display of user generated content, detrimental to that created by Business Pages.

Facebook’s founder sais this is an effort to bring family and friends closer together and more meaning to the time spent scrolling through the newsfeed.

Now that’s about all the specific information there is, leaving some to overreact, while others are trying to fill in the blanks.

Putting uncertainty aside, here’s what I can tell you about the impact the Facebook Newsfeed Purge will have on your organic marketing efforts.

 

Lower than 5%

One of the key information in Zuckerberg’s statement is that “the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down”. This isn’t anything new.

If you’ve been in the game long enough, you remember how easy it was to get a high like count and engagement back in 2013. It was about then that organic efforts from business pages received a blow.

Nowadays organic reach is at about 5% for most content and 10% for great content on pages. So if you have a small follower base on your page, non-sponsored content won’t really matter anymore.

Solution:

• While we don’t know for sure if having the “See First” option checked will matter or not, it can’t hurt to promote this option amongst your users, if you haven’t already.
• This should go without saying, but you need to create meaningfull content, that sparks conversation and gets users to engage with your posts.
• Create a group for your fan base and engage with the community. Host Q&A’s, create debates, polls or ask for feedback.
• Using a profile might help boost your awareness amongst potential customers, but only as a complementary means of promotion.

Potential increase in Ads expenses

While Zuckerberg didn’t mention anything in particular about Ads Campaigns some fear that even the ads you see will suffer from the Facebook Newsfeed Purge. “Facebook is making a huge change to its News Feed algorithm (…) at the expense of (…) the total time spent and ads you see on the social network”, fears John Constine from Tech Crunch.

While this isn’t the first time we have seen a decrease in Ads Campaigns results and an increase in expenses, there might be an alternative.

Solution:

Messenger focused Ads Campaigns might be the lifeline to which you can hold on to if prices do go up. Traffic campaigns targeted for messenger, with a messenger bot are already yielding great results at low costs. After all, Facebook’s Messenger App hit 1.3 billion active users last year.

The decline

Truth is nobody can tell for sure how the new algorythm will work. And although Facebook is bigger than ever, most have stated that this is the beginning of the end for Zuckerberg’s social media platform.

I think that Facebook has expanded to the point that it is beyond its creator’s ability to monitor and control. However it is still one of the most efficient ways for promoting your business, amongst certain types of audiences.

Solution:

Expand your marketing efforts to other platforms, like Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest etc. Even if Zuckerberg hadn’t announced the Facebook Newsfeed Purge, you should consider expanding your digital marketing campaigns to all relevant platforms.

The newsletter data base will once again proove its value. Email marketing should (if it hasn’t already) be a key component of your marketing strategy.

Conclusions

Every digital marketer knows that in order to stay on top of the game you have to constantly adapt. I think that this is particularly necessary for Facebook and that a business’s ability to overcome obstacles is essential for success.

What’s you take on this subject? Leave a comment below.

Good luck!