Facebook Algorithm Change: What That Means for Your Rehab Center
There are 65M+ companies that have a Facebook business page, and on average they post about 8x a day.
That is a lot of content posted every single day.
And that’s a lot of content users must filter through and ignore every day.
Because of this, Facebook recently changed its News Feed algorithm on how it ranks and displays posts so that you don’t have to sift through what to see and what to ignore.
In this blog post, we’ll go over what the algorithm change means for your rehab center marketing and what you can do to get the most out of your next FB post.
In a recent blog post by Mark Zuckerberg, he went into detail about why Facebook wants less content from businesses, brands, and to expect more meaningful interactions with friends and family.
As Mark put it, “Instead of exposing you to a daily clutter of marketing and promotional messages, Facebook wants your experience to be more about ‘meaningful interactions’ so that the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.”
Sounds admirable enough, right?
So, why did Facebook decide to change its News Feed algorithm?
Different experts and analysts may have different takes on why Facebook has implemented this major algorithm change.
Facebook’s vice-president in charge of the News Feed, Adam Mosseri, in this Wired interview, says that it’s all about encouraging more meaningful conversations among Facebook users. It’s all about making Facebook more personal and less commercial.
The author of this Forbes article, on the other hand, says that the political fallout of abundant fake news has forced Facebook to implement the latest algorithm.
What do we think?
We think it could be a mix of different reasons but one thing is for sure, Facebook has its best interest on shareholders and itself when making these types of changes.
With over 2 billion active users, everyone you know is on Facebook, and everyone you plan to attract for your business is also on Facebook.
Naturally, it becomes an irresistible medium for businesses, organizations, publications, and even political parties.
So why would Facebook offer a service for free when businesses will gladly pay for the exposure?
Before the algorithm update, it was free for businesses and publications to promote and share their news or stories. Now, they will have to either pay Facebook to get the same free exposure or make it more personable so that it shows up in the News Feed.
Sounds like a win-win situation for Facebook.
How does all of this impact your business?
It means only a small percentage of your content will make it to your audience’s News Feed.
It means you can’t post/share more and more content in hopes to keep your audience engaged.
It means, your average run-of-the-mill inspirational quotes and your blog post sharing strategy will no longer be sufficient.
And ultimately, if you are already using the Facebook Ads platform, you can expect the prices to rise from more businesses competing for the News Feed ad spaces.
What can you do about it?
It’s not all bad news..
You’ll still be able to promote or share all the quotes and testimonials you like. Just don’t expect the same type of engagement metrics or impressions like before.
Here are a few things you can do to improve your sharing:
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- End Self-Promotion: Stop talking about how great your service or product is and start creating content that actually helps people
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- High Quality Content: Invest in creating high quality content that is intended to answer questions or solve problems
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- Encourage Engagements: Encourage your audience to leave comments and make sure to reply to all your comments
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- Think Differently: Consider Facebook as an “engagement” medium rather than a “broadcasting” medium
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- Add Value: Offer valuable content that leads, motivates and encourages your audience
The point is, Facebook will filter out your posts if you have little or no engagement signals. So make sure to spark that conversation up. Make that interaction meaningful and nurture those relationships.
Important Note on the Live Feed Video
Facebook also mentioned that the new algorithm will be giving preference to longer video uploads compared to shorter videos or one-liners. And most importantly, it will give preference to Live Video Streaming & Live Video Feed than pre-recorded videos. We’ll cover this topic in depth in a brand new blog post next week so stayed tuned!
Conclusion
It is important to remember, Facebook is a social networking platform built for networking and engaging with your target audience. If you only use it to broadcast your marketing messages, you’re already losing out on the benefits that it offers.
