by Lizzy Murphy

Have you seen a difference in engagement from your Facebook followers? If you haven’t yet, get ready. After the most recent Facebook algorithm update, some businesses have noticed a small drop in interactions on their business page.  A statement released by Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, explains the changes made— changes that marketers around the world are calling the Facebook “Apocalypse.”

FACEBOOK APOCALYPSE?! That sounds serious.

Are you getting scared?

Don’t be!

I’m here to tell you how you can stay on your audience’s Facebook news feed because, after all, these are your very important current and prospective customers. First though, let’s understand what Zuckerberg has up his sleeve. Then we’ll cover how to thrive in this changing Facebook landscape.

So what’s the BIG change anyways?

In a nutshell, more emphasis is now on “meaningful” social interactions versus relevant content (previous focus). I’ll get to what I mean by meaningful a little later.

Why is this even happening?  

Initially, Facebook started with the intent of creating closer and more connected relationships within a community. However, in recent years, there has been an outcry from users who have seen Facebook move away from a personal experience to a site infiltrated with marketing messages. They want their personal experience back, and Facebook responded!

If you use the platform personally, you too might have had this same sentiment when over the past few years fewer and fewer of your personal connections were appearing on your feed, making you frustrated. I know I have. A friend of mine had recently moved back into town, and I ran into her while I was out during the weekend. When I asked her how long she was visiting, she gave me a strange look and asked if I no longer followed her on Facebook.  AWKWARD!

After talking and making plans to have dinner, I opened my Facebook app and went to her page. There were tons of posts talking about moving back, even pictures of the drive from Ohio to San Diego! Why hadn’t I seen any of these posts? I check my feed once a day… okay, okay maybe more than that. This was an issue for most users and a perfect example of one of the reasons Facebook has made the change.

What does “meaningful” entail?

It mainly boils down to having more quality engagement. More comments, likes and shares on a piece of content are going to fare better in making it to your audience’s feed. For example, it will be better to have a small group of people engaging in a long multi-comment discussion versus a larger audience that just simply likes a post. The deeper the engagement, the better.

How does this affect you?

Facebook is going to curb the posts from businesses, media and brands so people will see more meaningful and personal posts, especially from friends and family. Unfortunately, this means it’s going to be a lot more difficult serving content that organically shows up in your audience’s news feed or you will have to pay higher prices for ads.

How can you get around this problem?

Get your audience interacting with you more!  If a personal and engaging experience is what your audience and Facebook want, give it to them. Yes, you have to work a little harder because you’re a business and Facebook has already singled you out as a less personal connection, but there are many things you can do to turn that around and make your business shine.

Here is a small trick I have seen, and I think it’s working out great!  Create an event, go live and post.  These three simple actions when taken together can get you back on to your customer’s feeds, and increase your customer visits. Here is what you should try:

Create an event on Facebook. When you do, all your customers will get a notification. Simply click on “Events” on the left-hand side of your page.

Then you will see a “Create Event” button.

From there you will be able to name the event, select the time and location. You can even add a photo and description. If you are planning to go live, you should create an event the day before. Name it something like “Watch us live! Why is it important to change your air filter this spring?”

The day of your live video, have a plan! Designate one of your staff members as the camera guy. All you need is a smartphone and the Facebook app. Make sure to read the comments as you are live, as customers will be asking questions that you can answer as you go.

You should also keep your videos short – shouldn’t go over 15 min. Sticking with the air filter theme, I suggest you have the vehicle in the bay ready to go. Pull out a dirty filter while explaining how that will change the quality of air in the car, but also how it affects other important functions. Make sure you explain how mold is built up and how dangerous it can be. Do this all while changing the filter. Show a clean filter next to the one you took out. When you are finished, remind your customers of your hours of operation and that you perform the service you just reviewed.

By using this process, your customers should receive five notifications from your business! That’s five times they will see your name and logo. The first one will come when you create the event; remember to do it the day before. The second notification will be the day of the event; a reminder is sent with a “don’t forget about this event today!” Once you start your live feed, a notification will go out to all your followers that you are going live. A few minutes into your video another notification goes out stating you are live now. Once you end your video, anyone who didn’t go to the feed will get one last notice: “Shop Was Live.” Your followers will then be able to watch the recorded video if they missed it.

To navigate to live video, follow these steps.

Now for the final piece of the puzzle: post. All the questions you answered in the video should be posted. You can start the post off with something like this: “Thank you to all who tuned in. Here are some of the best questions, along with our answers, about air filters!” Anyone who clicked on your video, even if they didn’t watch it all, will more likely now see your posts. Once they interact with you, Facebook will recognize the interest of your follower, and in turn, will start showing your posts to them regularly.

The SocialCRM team is monitoring the changes that Facebook and other platforms are making and will continue to find ways to help you adapt. We hope this can help you with the engagement on your page.  Give it a try, and let your SocialCRM support agent know how it went!