The time we’ve all been hinting at has finally arrived – Facebook is officially putting the kibosh on organic reach for brand pages. Translation? If you’re not paying to be seen, you won’t be seen.
“No matter how creative a brand’s Facebook posts may be, they simply won’t get shown to any more than a negligible fraction of their followers.”
—Omar Ahktar, Senior Editor of the HUB Marketing Technology Resource
Although frustrating, this can be a unique opportunity for marketers to start delivering a different kind of value for brands, beyond the general “like-growth” objective. Whereas the original “community-building” goal still holds true in social media, there are many more options to pursue in Facebook’s robust advertising platform. Here’s what we recommend:
- Website Click Ads: Use unique targeting to send people off of Facebook and to convert on your website instead
- Create complex, separated campaigns so that you can look back later and attribute actions to different types of people
- Facebook Offers: Share a special incentive with a new base of potential customers
- You can even exclude people that you already have in your CRM so that you’re only finding new faces
- Bid for Impressions: Though a bit more abstract of a metric, the number of eyes on your content still matters
- Build up visibility by promoting posts and making sure your brand name is reaching as many people as possible
The key to a strong social strategy is staying in the loop with these updates and shifts. If you’re in-the-know, you can adapt and be sure that you’re taking advantage of the best opportunities for your ad dollars.
How does your business’s social strategy measure up? Download this free checklist, 15 Steps to Social Success, and learn the most critical elements to building a thriving social community.