How to make Facebook's algorithm change work for you - Turn a crisis for other brands into an opportunity for you - Reshift Media
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
How to make Facebook’s
algorithm change
work for you
Turn a crisis for other brands into an
opportunity for you
© Reshift Media 2018 1
RESHIFT
MEDIA
Reshift Media is a digital marketing organization
specializing in multi-location businesses such as
franchises, retailers, food services and agencies.
We provide customized social media, search,
design, development and software services across
a variety of industries in 20 countries worldwide.
www.reshiftmedia.com
1-855-367-3631
info@reshiftmedia.com
! /reshiftmedia
! /reshiftmedia
! /company/reshiftmedia
Attend Our Live Q&A About The News Feed Changes!
Don’t miss our upcoming Facebook Live session on
JAN January 18th at 3:00PM ET where we will discuss
18
what brands should be doing to maximize their exposure in
Facebook’s updated News Feed, and where we will address
THURSDAY live any questions you may have.
http://rshft.com/fblive
© Reshift Media 2018 2
Introduction How Facebook’s News Feed
As you may already be aware, on January 11, 2018 is Changing
Facebook announced a major change to its News Feed
algorithm that will profoundly impact brands’ ability to reach Facebook announced last week that they are
people on Facebook through organic distribution updating the News Feed algorithm to prioritize
(see: http://rshft.com/announcement). The change posts that create conversations and interactions
prioritizes interactions between friends and family over
company-generated posts, meaning that content consumed
between people. In their definition, these are posts
directly from business pages on Facebook will shrink and that people share and react to, and that “inspire
content that is shared & talked about between friends will back-and-forth discussion” in the comments.
grow.
“We’re making a major change to how
In particular, posts that generate “interactions” such as
comments and shares will be weighted more heavily than
we build Facebook. I’m changing the
posts that generate just likes or reactions. In addition, posts goal I give our product teams from
with longer comments will be weighted more heavily than focusing on helping you find relevant content
those with short ones. to helping you have more meaningful social
interactions.”
“Interactions” is the new - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
“Engagement”
Mr. Zuckerberg also stated that people browsing Facebook
will see more content from friends and family and less from
Many news organizations and blogs are decrying the
brands and publishers. In addition, posts that generate
move, using terms such as “apocalyptic”, “betrayal” and
comments, shares and messages will be prioritized more
“nail in the coffin”. We here at Reshift Media are not quite
than posts that only generate likes. Not only that, but
as pessimistic as others about the changes. We believe
Facebook has also stated that posts with longer comments
that the reduction (or even the possible elimination) of
will be weighted more heavily than those with short ones,
the “engagement bait” posts that have been dominating
as longer comments indicate a greater level of engagement
Facebook’s News Feed for far too long is a major
with the content. “As we roll this out,
opportunity for high-quality organizations with strong
customer engagement strategies to finally stand out from you’ll see less public
the crowd. content like posts from
businesses, brands, and media.”
Declining organic reach is nothing new. Facebook has been
Of particular note
decreasing the amount of organic reach brands are able - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
is that Facebook
to achieve for some time – from 50% to 20% to 10% to 5%
has explicitly said that pre-recorded videos, no matter how
and most recently down to around 2.5%, on average. Smart
entertaining or informative they are, will be de-prioritized
brands and agencies that have already been pursuing
in the feed as watching video tends to be a more “passive”
engagement strategies and building solid content to adjust
exercise that typically does not inspire much conversation.
for this declining reach should see less impact than brands
This is a major reversal for Facebook, as video has gained
whose Facebook content gets little shares or comments.
incredible prominence in the News Feed in recent years and
has been an effective way for brands to organically generate
The changes to the News Feed are happening quickly, so
reach and engagement.
we recommend brands and agencies adjust their Facebook
strategies as soon as possible to minimize the impact to
their reach. We have several recommendations that brands “There will be less video. Video is an
can pursue to not only important part of the ecosystem. It’s
survive, but potentially thrive, been consistently growing. But it’s more
on Facebook going forward. passive in nature. There’s less conversation on
videos, particularly public videos.”
- Adam Mosseri, Head of News Feed, Facebook
© Reshift Media 2018 3
However, Facebook has specifically called out live video Although companies will still be able to reach people via
as a continuing opportunity, citing that live videos tend to advertising, we at Reshift are advising our clients to expect
generate six times as many interactions as regular videos, the cost of advertising to increase. Facebook advertising
which is the type of person-to-person interaction they are has historically been a cost-effective way to reach a very
looking for in the updated News Feed. targeted audience when compared to other advertising
methods, however, with organic reach being greatly reduced
A bit of a surprise to some people was that both we expect brands to increase their advertising spend, which
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook vice president will undoubtedly have an inflationary effect on cost.
Adam Mosseri have mentioned Facebook
Groups (see: http://rshft.com/groups) as The degree of the impact won’t be known for several
a growing opportunity for person-to-person months,but we are recommending that our clients be
interactions. In fact, Mr. Zuckerberg specifically prepared for a 35-45% increase in cost in the short-term,
mentioned Groups alongside friends and family depending on the level of competition in their particular
as an area of content people can expect to see industry.
more of in their News Feed. This is something
that has been in the works for some time, as
Facebook has been recently increasing their Why is Facebook Doing this?
focus on Groups and implementing several
improvements. The company held its first ever Although many people have speculated that
“Communities Summit” in June 2017 where these changes are being made in response to the
they announced a number of new features for issues Facebook has faced regarding “fake news,”
Group admins to support their communities
on Facebook, which looks to have been a
the company is has indicated that the update is
precursor to this latest New Feed update. They not aimed at their
“It’s not about
also announced Groups for Business pages ongoing efforts
(see: http://rshft.com/group-pages),
addressing false news
Source: Facebook
to address this
allowing brands to create their own distinct or other forms of
concern.
communities and feeds. problematic content, though
that is a continued area of
“You can expect to see more from
focus and investment for us.”
your friends, family and groups.” Instead, Facebook says
that the motivation for - Adam Mosseri,
- Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
the changes is to improve Head of News Feed, Facebook
The timing of the update has not been specifically people’s happiness and
outlined, but Facebook has indicated that the philosophy well-being. Instead of simply spending time on Facebook, Source:
Facebook
of encouraging “social interactions” more than “popularity” the company says that it wants the time to be “well
will be rolled out across all of their products over several spent”. To support this position, Facebook has cited
months. The News Feed is the first area that will see these studies conducted by academics and by the company
changes, which are expected to be rolled out very quickly. itself which differentiate “bad” effects of social media
when it is being passively consumed versus more
“positive” effects when the person is actively engaged.
Does This Affect
Advertising? Here’s a brief summary of the rationale (as provided by
Facebook in a December 15, 2017 post):
According to Facebook, this change will have no
direct impact on how advertising works, as it is The bad:
a separate system with its own algorithm. This
means the reach and effectiveness of video ads In general, when people spend a lot of time passively
consuming information — reading but not interacting
and other ad units will not be directly impacted
with people — they report feeling worse afterward. In one
by the News Feed updates. Any campaigns that experiment, University of Michigan students randomly
are currently underway or planned should not be assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in
impacted. a worse mood at the end of the day than students
assigned to post or talk to friends on Facebook. A study
© Reshift Media 2018 4
from UC San Diego and Yale found that people who clicked as there will be more brands attempting to buy ads in an
on about four times as many links as the average person, environment of shrinking inventory.
or who liked twice as many posts, reported worse mental
health than average in a survey. Though the causes aren’t
clear, researchers hypothesize that reading about others “I want to be clear: by making these
online might lead to negative social comparison — and changes, I expect the time people spend
perhaps even more so than offline, since people’s posts are on Facebook and some measures of
often more curated and flattering. Another theory is that engagement will go down. But I also expect the
the internet takes people away from social engagement in
time you do spend on Facebook will be more
person.
valuable. And if we do the right thing, I believe that
The good: will be good for our community and our business
over the long term too.”
On the other hand, actively interacting with people —
- Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
especially sharing messages, posts and comments with
close friends and reminiscing about past interactions — is
linked to improvements in well-being. This ability to connect
with relatives, classmates, and colleagues is what drew many How the Update Impacts
of us to Facebook in the first place, and it’s no surprise that
staying in touch with these friends and loved ones brings us Brands
joy and strengthens our sense of community.
Facebook’s News Feed has for some time
A study we conducted with Robert Kraut at Carnegie emphasized posts that generate interactions such
Mellon University found that people who sent or received as likes, comments and shares between friends,
more messages, comments and Timeline posts reported
but it has also surfaced other public content that
improvements in social support, depression and loneliness.
The positive effects were even stronger when people talked its algorithm expects people will find interesting
with their close friends online. Simply broadcasting status based on broader trends across the network. With
updates wasn’t enough; people the new update this will still
had to interact one-on-one with
be true, but the emphasis on
others in their network. Other peer-
reviewed longitudinal research and posts that come from within
experiments have found similar peoples’ social networks will
positive benefits between well-being be weighted even more heavily
and active engagement on Facebook. than previously.
Others have speculated that the As a result, Facebook has been very
update is designed to force brands to clear that they expect the News Feed
buy more advertising to reach their update to have a negative effect on
desired audience – essentially ending the reach of “public” content created
the “free ride” brands have enjoyed by brands and media outlets. However,
since Facebook’s inception. While this does not mean that organic reach
we can’t say if this is indeed one of is “dead.” In fact, the company has
the motivations driving the update, been careful to point out that brand
there is little doubt that the change posts are not being removed from the
will result in brands spending more ad dollars on Facebook to News Feed, but that the new emphasis on person-to-person
reach their current and prospective customers. interactions will reduce the amount of content consumed
directly from pages.
Facebook has publically stated that they believe the update
may actually decrease the amount of time people spend on Companies that typically do not receive many comments and
their platform, but that ultimately people will be happier with shares on their posts can expect to see a substantial decrease
their overall experience. in organic reach – potentially to zero. Those who have content
that drives conversation can expect a lesser decline.
If the amount of time people spend does in fact decrease,
this will likely contribute to the inflation of advertising costs,
© Reshift Media 2018 5
customers and drive business results, but
as we will outline it also opens up some
“As we make these updates, Pages may see new opportunities. Facebook continues to
their reach, video watch time and referral traffic be the largest social network on the planet
and has incredible data and tools to help
decrease. The impact will vary from Page to any company – big or small – grow their
Page, driven by factors including the type of content they business.
produce and how people interact with it. Pages making
posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on Some companies may be tempted to
could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages implement strategies to “game the
system” by creating low-quality content
whose posts prompt conversations between friends will which encourages commenting, tagging
see less of an effect.” or sharing with little value created. These
- Adam Mosseri, Head of News Feed, Facebook strategies are called “engagement baiting”
and have been under scrutiny by Facebook
for some time. The company has developed
What this means is that companies who mainly blast out a machine learning model designed to detect different types
self-serving marketing messages with little value will, in fact, of engagement bait and remove them from the News Feed.
see a major decrease in organic distribution. Pages that are found to repeatedly use engagement bait to
artificially gain reach in News Feed will be demoted
To be successful, brands need to do a better
job of engaging and interacting with people and
encouraging them to interact with each other.
It is also important to realize that the value
of a “fan” has been substantially decreased.
Even if a person follows a brand’s page, the
odds of them actually seeing posts from that
company have never been lower. As such, we
do not recommend investing any ad dollars
in growing your fanbase. We are surprised to
Source: Facebook
find many brands continue to run “Facebook
Like” campaigns, which are designed to encourage people
to follow the brand’s page. These dollars are better spent on
attracting prospective customers to the company’s website How to Make the Algorithm
or showcasing the company’s products.
Change Work For You
Although we do not recommend spending money to
earn new fans, that does not mean that it is a bad idea to We believe that the January 2018 update to
continue to grow your social audience through organic Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is good news
means. In fact, we see several opportunities for brands for brands who are engaging with their customers
to continue to reach and engage current and prospective and producing quality content. Based on what
customers, which we will outline shortly.
Facebook is saying, we can expect “click bait”
posts to decrease in volume, which frees up
What Not To Do space for higher-quality content that generates
interactions to be surfaced.
Don’t Although there is a lot of speculation about
how significant the impact will be for brands
Panic! and media companies, we have yet to see
This means that fewer brand posts will be seen overall, but
the ones that are seen will be the ones that generate more
what exactly the outcome will be. Yes, we meaningful interactions between people. Although more
expect that this update will have a significant difficult to create, the upside is that these types of posts are
effect on how brands use Facebook to engage with of higher value to both the person and the brand.
© Reshift Media 2018 6
As outlined previously, Facebook has been decreasing
organic reach for some time, so we at Reshift have
implemented several strategies to increase brands’
distribution opportunities. In light of the update to
the algorithm, we have developed a list of the top 10
opportunities for brands to consider in order to minimize the
impact of the update, and possibly even grow their exposure.
1. Integrate your paid and organic Facebook strategies
Many companies view their Facebook advertising and -- Geography (neighborhoods, cities, regions)
organic strategies as completely separate. Going forward, -- Demographics (age, gender)
we recommend integrating organic and paid planning to -- Interests (sports, travel, television)
use ad dollars as a means to “prime the pump” for organic -- Language
reach.
Once you know your audience groups, you can tailor your
In our view, whether a post is paid for or not is irrelevant. In content to each audience individually in order to make it as
both cases the objective should be to create informative, relevant as possible. The more relevant it is, the more likely
interesting content that results in activity on behalf of the your fans will interact with the content which will aid in its
recipient. In the case of Facebook advertising you just distribution. You can even take the same basic message
happen to be paying to distribute the content to a specific and re-write it for your various audiences, if appropriate.
target audience – it should still be quality content. You can then use Facebook’s targeting capabilities to share
each piece of content with the correct target group.
2. Reach the right people with the right posts at the right time In addition, you should time your posts to coincide with
when your audience is most active on Facebook. Facebook
Traditional “mass media” facilitated a one-to-many means metrics don’t tell you when each demographic is active, but
of communication, while the rise of social media opened you can identify in general when your fans overall are online.
up the opportunity for a one-to-few or even a one-to-one This will give you the best possible chance of reaching the
means of communicating information or ideas. However, right people at the right time.
over time many companies shifted back into “mass media”
mode where they create a single “generic” post which is The key to this approach is to challenge each piece if
syndicated to a large homogeneous audience. content to ensure it:
With the changes to the News Feed, posts that do not create -- Is relevant to the audience
comments and shares will not gain distribution. General • Is the copy written using language and a tone that will
posts that are aimed at a homogeneous audience typically resonate with them?
do not inspire interaction, so brands need to get more • Is the photo attractive to them?
serious about how they think about creating content on -- Encourages interaction
Facebook. In some ways, the News Feed update is a good • Are you asking a relevant question of your audience?
wake-up call to get back into the mindset of thinking about • Is the piece of information you are sharing something
social media as a one-to-few means of communicating. they will care about?
• Are they likely to want to comment on it or share it with
To achieve a one-to-few approach, we recommend analyzing a friend?
your Facebook insights (see: http://rshft.com/insights)
to understand the makeup of your audience. Insights has
a tremendous amount of information about your fanbase 3. Produce content that generates interactions
and who typically responds to your posts and at what time
of day. If you have a local business page, you can even see This recommendation may seem somewhat self-evident,
when people are physically near your business location and but our list clearly would not be complete without it. Now,
what their age/gender is. more than ever, companies need to challenge themselves
to really think about the needs of their audience segments
With this information in-hand, you can then logically in order to create and share content that people will react to
segment your audience into smaller focused groups along a and converse about.
number of factors, including:
© Reshift Media 2018 7
The days of creating a funny meme that received a bunch of
likes to “go viral” are clearly behind us.
Again, we see this as good news. Few people actually
enjoyed seeing their Facebook feed crammed full of low-
quality click-bait, so by demoting these in the News Feed
Facebook is making it easier for legitimate companies
producing interesting information to be seen.
The issue is that what constitutes “interesting” varies from
brand to brand and from customer to customer. The key
point to keep in mind is that the content needs to generate
an interaction such as a comment or share to be deemed
of high value, so focusing on strategies to generate
conversation is key. Be careful not to fall into the trap of Beyond creating more interactions, this approach has
accidentally producing engagement bait though, as this will several positive effects:
have the opposite effect on your visibility.
-- Helps solidify your relationship with the customer. By
DON’T: Ask yes/no questions or purposely try to illicit sharing their story from your brand page you make them
low-value engagement: feel special, which everyone enjoys.
-- Positions your company as caring about customers. Your
brand will feel more real and authentic which increases
affinity.
-- Introduces your business to new prospective customers
in a very positive light. These customer stories essentially
become brand testimonials.
4. Focus on quality over quantity
More than ever, the quality of your content should take
priority over the frequency of posting. Many brands we
speak to post on Facebook daily (or even more frequently)
DO: Create relevant content and ask meaningful in order to artificially increase their overall reach. The reach
questions that spur community conversation: of each post is actually quite small, but because they post
so frequently each little post adds up to a better overall
monthly reach number.
Under the new algorithm, this strategy may be extremely
detrimental to your brand’s visibility if the majority of your
posts receive little interaction.
To be successful, quality is the name of the game. We
recommend brands segment their audience as previously
One strategy we have found effective in generating discussed and carefully consider each post from the
interactions is to create posts that share customer stories. perspective of the recipient to ensure it is relevant to the
This is particularly effective when your product or service is audience you are targeting. In our experience, unless you
connected to a life event such as buying a car, building a house are receiving incredible interactions and huge reach for
or getting a new puppy. Celebrating your customers’ stories every post, 3-4 Facebook posts per week is more than
is a great way to generate conversation with the customer enough. Anything beyond this may result in people ignoring
whose story you are telling, which in turn surfaces the content your posts, which will lead to a decrease in the number of
to their friends and family who often interact with the content interactions and therefore reach.
to congratulate the person or ask them questions.
© Reshift Media 2018 8
5. Create a Facebook Group What video you shoot depends on your business and
customers. Some of the more popular ideas include:
Facebook has called out Groups
(see: http://rshft.com/groups) as an -- Host a live Q&A
opportunity to generate user interactions, -- Behind-the scenes/live tours
and has even mentioned Groups content -- Breaking news
as receiving the same level of News Feed -- Contest or challenge
distribution as posts from family and friends. -- Demos/how-tos
-- Events/conferences
Facebook recently introduced Groups for pages, allowing -- Interviews
page admins to create or connect sub-groups to their -- Product launches
pages. This creates a place for niche or smaller audiences -- Explain a product
that may not have had a space to come together before -- Reoccurring video show
now. Groups provide an opportunity for a closer relationship -- Answer customer questions from your blog or Facebook
between brands and their customers. Businesses can page
communicate directly with their superfans and determine
how their customers really feel towards their company/ In order to ensure a successful live event, we recommend the
product/service. Group users are able to chat with each following:
other, and to the page admins directly.
-- Plan out the video ahead of time and ensure it is relevant to
6. Go Live on Facebook your target audience. As it is live, you don’t have the luxury
of re-takes and editing to get it exactly how you want it, so
If you have not already tried it, Facebook be sure to have a solid script and plan before turning the
allows any individual or brand to “go live” camera on.
with video anytime. Although the company has stated that -- Promote the event ahead of time to increase the number
pre-recorded video will likely be shown less, they specifically of people watching. This can be done through promotion
mentioned live video as generating more interactions and on your website, Facebook ads (including an event ad),
therefore being of higher value in the updated News Feed. promotion on other platforms (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn),
promotion within your store(s) to existing customers
Facebook Live has several interesting benefits for brands: via signage or word-of-mouth and/or an email blast to
subscribers, among others.
-- Livestreaming receives 6 times the engagement of -- Ask users to submit questions ahead of time so that you
regular video which helps you “break through” Facebook’s have something to talk about in the first few minutes before
algorithm to gain additional distribution. the live questions start coming in
-- Only 28% of marketers are using Facebook Live, which
makes it an underused marketing opportunity. 7. Watch Out For Facebook Stories
-- When you “go live,” Facebook notifies your page’s fans
which represents a great opportunity to reach people. It is Stories haven’t really taken off on Facebook like they
unknown if this will change in the update, but as of now have on Instagram, but that may change as brands
the notification is still present. try to find more ways to get in front of people
organically. Though Facebook Stories is currently
limited to personal profiles, TechCrunch (see: http://
rshft.com/stories) recently confirmed that this
feature will be rolling out to all pages in the coming
months.
Before it becomes widely popular with brands,
be the first to jump on Stories by implementing
it as soon as it is enabled on your page. As we’ve
discovered on Instagram, Stories are a great way for
companies to reach people by offering interesting
content such as behind-the-scenes videos and how-
to instructions. Plus, Facebook displays the latest
Source: Facebook
Stories at the very top of the News Feed on both desktop and
the mobile app, offering incredible organic exposure.
© Reshift Media 2018 9
8. Motivate people to share on your behalf networks. This is particularly powerful for brands that create
experiences – such as restaurants, hotels, event companies
We at Reshift have often talked about the importance of and other similar businesses.
engaging your customers and fans to share information
about your brand on their own personal Facebook page. Outside of overtly asking people to talk about you on
This means that they create their own post about your Facebook (which is often quite difficult), there are several
company and share it, as opposed to sharing a post from proven strategies to encourage people to share their
your brand page to their friends and family. positive experiences:
This concept is crucial for all social media marketing -- Create content on your website that is about them.
professionals because the reach of personal pages has long This could be a celebration of their stories (similar to
outperformed business pages. With this latest algorithm the car example in idea #3) or something as simple
change, it is clear that person-to-person interaction will be as a “customer of the week”. The idea is to create
even more favored over business-to-person. This opens up website content that is about them, their community or
an opportunity for smart brands to better engage their best something they care about. People enjoy being part of
fans to increase their distribution and reach new potential the conversation and will almost always share it to their
customers. own social networks on your behalf.
-- Surprise and delight them. Give them an unexpected
Being successful with this approach involves surprise such as a table visit from the head chef, a
developing high quality content and a strong surprise credit on their account, or a discount for repeat
customer engagement strategy. visitors. This is where your on-the-ground customer
engagement strategy is critical - go the extra mile to
One of the best ways to encourage people to make their experience a great one and they will naturally
talk about your company on social media is to talk about it on social media.
create a strong blog on your company website -- Use your store to provide visual cues that your brand
with interesting information about your industry, “gets” social media. Bring social media into the “real
customers, products or other relevant content. world” by integrating social elements into your physical
You should actively promote your blog to your stores. This could include ideas such as displaying
existing customers through newsletters, in-store hashtags alongside menu items or prominently posting
experiences and social media. You may even the company’s social handles.
want to consider putting a modest ad budget -- Give people some “fame”. The idea is to show that you
against promoting your content on several social care about their social posts and want to share them
networks (not just Facebook). Ensuring the post with other people. This could include ideas such as
is search optimized is also important to increase having digital screens in your facility display a running
its discoverability via Google and Bing. feed of brand mentions so people can see themselves,
or hanging up printed posters of a this week’s best
customer photos from Facebook/Instagram.
A strong blog can encourage people to share your content
on social media 9. Make your content a “must have” for your followers
Although the News Feed determines what content people
Your objective with these efforts is to encourage people to see, they can manually override the algorithm to select
come to your blog to read it. Once they are on your article, people and pages that they want to see first in their feed.
encourage them to share their thoughts on social media This can be done two ways:
(including Facebook, of course). When the person shares
the article via their personal profile, their reach within their 1) Via their personal “News Feed Preferences.” People
social circles will be superior to what you could achieve as can click “News Feed Preferences” and then “prioritize
a brand page, which will allow you to reach new prospective who to see first”.
customers. If they click through, read and share the article,
then you achieve even more distribution.
We earlier discussed how sharing customer stories from
your brand page is a good way to generate interactions.
This concept is also very powerful when the customer
shares their own story about your brand via their social
© Reshift Media 2018 102) On the brand page itself. People visiting your brand b) Entertainment: Content that entertains people or
page can click on “following” and then choose “see first”. brings them some enjoyment.
-- Comedy/satire
-- Quizzes/contests
10. Measure and manage the right things
As they say – what gets measured gets done. To that end,
we recommend taking a hard look at how you measure your
Facebook performance to ensure it is aligned with the new
algorithm update. When creating content for your brand
page, less emphasis should be placed on “vanity” metrics
such as page or post likes and more focus should be placed
on post interactions (comments, shares) and reach. Posts
achieving strong interactions and reach should be viewed
Although the ability to prioritize pages is not a well-known as a success, even if they did not generate as many likes as
feature and involves some work on behalf of your fans, other posts.
companies with highly engaged customers can achieve
some success in teaching people to take this step to ensure Beyond measuring the reach of posts you create, we also
they receive content from the brand. recommend monitoring for brand mentions across all
social networks to see how frequently people are creating
The key to this approach is to make your content a “must their own posts about your brand. This will be an important
have” for your fans. Again, what exactly appeals to people measurement to understand if your content and offline
varies from brand to brand and even between customer strategies are encouraging people to use their personal
segments within a brand. We recommend conducting user profiles to promote your brand.
profiling and segmentation to ensure you understand what
value you bring to your customers in order to create the type
of content they absolutely must have. Opportunities for
We encourage brainstorming content within two major
Multi-location Businesses
“buckets”: Reshift Media specializes in working with
multi-location businesses across a wide
a) Informational/tactical: Content that informs people or variety of industries. Having carefully reviewed
provides some utility. the upcoming changes to the News Feed, we
believe that companies such as franchises,
-- Deals/offers/coupons/flyers: Some customer retailers and restaurant chains have even more opportunities
segments love a deal, which can be a strong than single-location or virtual businesses to be successful on
motivator to take an extra step to ensure they get “the Facebook going forward.
best” deals available. One strategy we often use is
to offer some deals only on Facebook and use other The single greatest asset multi-location businesses have is
avenues such as the company’s website or email that they are both local and national at the same time. This
newsletter to promote that exclusive deals can only means that done well, multi-location companies can leverage
be found there. all the best aspects of being “local” while bringing to bear the
-- Menu items/specials/schedules: Many businesses assets, sophistication and scalability of being a “national”
provide their products or services based on a company.
schedule, which may be important information for
customers to be aware of. For example, someone In relation to the News Feed update, it is the local aspect that
who frequently visits a particular restaurant may we see as the most powerful opportunity. The update is all
want to be kept up-to-date about menu changes or about surfacing content that generates interactions such as
daily specials. comments and shares, which is where local content shines.
-- News/events: Become the “go to” information source Locally-specific posts are naturally more relevant to people in
in your field so that followers don’t want to miss an that area, and in our experience tend to generate more of the
update, otherwise they will be “out of the loop”. interactions being favored by the updated News Feed.
-- How-tos: Become a resource in your industry for how
to do things. As an example, strategy #3 discussed how the creation of
© Reshift Media 2018 11customer stories is an excellent way for brands to create
social interactions. This is an excellent example of a strategy
Conclusions
that works incredibly well for multi-location businesses
Although a change of this magnitude will naturally lead to
because the national person can provide the strategy
a period of uncertainty and concern by those affected, we
and coaching around what the correct content strategy
believe that the News Feed update creates an opportunity
is, while the local person who knows their customers and
for brands to re-examine the low-engagement “mass
neighborhood is able to create the authentic, meaningful
media” approach they may be taking today. At this point it is
content. This is the type of approach that is going to be
unknown exactly how profound the effect will be on brand
successful in the new algorithm.
reach, but there is little doubt that lower-interaction brands
will see a decrease in their Facebook effectiveness. Now
Despite the benefits, we find many multi-location businesses
is the time from brands to be implementing meaningful
are reluctant to involve their local teams in social media
changes which will not only improve Facebook results,
content creation, most often citing concerns over quality,
but also business drivers such as customer engagement,
tone and alignment with brand objectives. These are all
customer satisfaction and new customer acquisition.
legitimate concerns, but based on our experience these can
be overcome through a combination of training, support and
We at Reshift Media expect that the next few months will
monitoring.
be a major period of adjustment as the impact of the new
changes take effect. If you implement the recommendations
Training: Provide social media and content creation
in this guide that apply to your business and are diligent
training to your local teams. Ensure the training
about focusing on interactions as your main objective, your
includes what not to do, including engagement bait
company has a significant opportunity to out-perform your
and contests which violate Facebook’s policies.
competitors who are slower to adapt.
Support: Provide local teams with a resource they
For more information on this and other social
can contact for help when they require it. In some
media, search and other digital marketing
cases, we have seen businesses centralize the
topics, please visit our blog at
customer response function to ease the burden
www.reshiftmedia.com.
on the local teams, allowing them to focus on the
creation of interesting local content.
Monitoring: Review content being posted locally to
ensure it is up to the company’s standards. Where
it is not, the head office can intervene to improve
the content and provide additional training. In some
cases we have seen brands follow a moderation
process to ensure local content meets the
company’s brand standards.
Although it takes some work to implement a local content
strategy in a multi-location business, the potential payoff is
tremendous. Through this process, you will:
-- Create more content overall, leading to a more robust
Facebook community
-- Increase the relevance of your content, which leads to
increased interactions and therefore Facebook visibility
-- Generate greater customer engagement, both on social
media and in your stores
-- Increase buy-in of local teams
© Reshift Media 2018 12Attend Our Live Q&A About The News Feed Changes!
Don’t miss our upcoming Facebook Live session on
JAN January 18th at 3:00PM ET where we will discuss
18
what brands should be doing to maximize their exposure in
Facebook’s updated News Feed, and where we will address
THURSDAY live any questions you may have.
http://rshft.com/fblive
Resources
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571
https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/best-practices/
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-people-closer-together/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103899863723631&set=a.529237706231.2034669.4&type=3&theater
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/news-feed-fyi-fighting-engagement-bait-on-facebook/
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/hard-questions-is-spending-time-on-social-media-bad-for-us/
https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/get-started/audience-optimization
https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-adam-mosseri-on-why-youll-see-less-video-more-from-friends/
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/12/facebook-stories-for-pages/
https://digiday.com/media/theyre-saying-f-publishers-media-winners-losers-facebooks-feed-purge/
https://digiday.com/marketing/organic-reach-facebook-dead-advertisers-will-spend-reach-facebooks-feed-purge/
http://mashable.com/2018/01/11/facebook-news-feed-algorithm-changes-family-friends/#mnbqyL.ljZqi
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/technology/facebook-news-feed-changes.html
https://twitter.com/mosseri
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X15002535
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/our-first-communities-summit-and-new-tools-for-group-admins/
https://www.facebook.com/business/news/audience-insights
https://www.facebook.com/help/1629740080681586/?helpref=hc_fnav
© Reshift Media 2018 13You can also read
