Picture this! Driving along in Ireland on a wet, grey and dreary Day in Ireland! To make it worse I was stuck in Traffic and had a two hour journey home. Yes it really was one of those days! I wouldn’t mind but the start of the day was great.
It was sunny, meetings went great and the day seemed to pass off without a hitch. What could go wrong! But come 5 o’clock, that good feeling was shattered. Once you see the long snaking traffic with a trail of red lights, you get that dreaded feeling you’re going know where fast and the finish line feels like an eternity.
If you are clever and patient enough you might know your way around the back roads and avoid the traffic completely. But hey, I am not a local so you just got to suck it up and make the best of a bad situation. Eventually when things started to move, you start to feel drained of energy and just need a pick me up.
Switching on the radio I could hear nothing but bland music stations churning out the latest manufactured hits or just talk radio. But landing on one station, Neil Young’s ‘Keep on Rockin in the Free World’ came on.
Overcoming the traffic and driving on a clear Motorway, I had this song blasting in the car. What a feeling, I was free at last!
Ok so you’re wondering about the over dramatic tone of my story and how this is related to Social Media Marketing! Over the last few months business owners have noticed a dramatic decrease in Facebook organic reach. It has become apparent over recent years that Facebook want businesses to advertise to reach their target audience. Over the years businesses have worked hard on growing their likes and used Facebook to advertise to their community for free. But this is no more.
Facebooks new algorithm reduces the number of pages that your content is can be visible on. To reach your fan base or new fans you must ‘pay to play’. Facebook’s logic is simple. Business Content must be relevant to your fans to have any organic reach. They can’t put every business page post on people’s timelines due to the high volume and saturation. There is a risk people will just switch off Facebook completely because of all the marketing content and messages from businesses. Therefore to reach your audience you must pay to have your content seen.
This in my opinion is somewhat contradictory, if someone likes your page they are genuinely interest and want to engage. If your fans can’t see your content, they can’t engage! Also people are now been bombarded in their timelines with irrelevant paid content. Paid content can become lazy and lack any imagination.
I had ads targeted at me recently such as ‘muscles protein builders’ or ‘for a farmers magazine’. I am neither and to be honest it’s not content that I am interested in. To me lazy paid untargeted marketing tactics will have a negative impact on Brands over time. Yes you will get reach with paid ads but will you get engagement and loyalty over time. Remember your content should be structured with a focus on brand building and fan engagement. Yes that is the secret in creating long-term brand and customer loyalty on Social Media.
In some ways I like Facebooks new algorithm because it forces people think more about quality content marketing and not cheap tricks to engage people like Meme’s. It makes businesses understand how important to find your Social Media voice and have a personality behind your brand. People instinctively react to this. Two simple tips I will leave you to build free organic reach:
- Make sure your content is relevant to people
- Create likeable and Shareable branded content
If people like your brand and your content they will share. You should focus on visual images and user generated content. This will ensure fan engagement and build organic reach. Remember Facebook marketing is not about you, it’s about your fans. Think of Facebook algorithm the same way as Googles new hummingbird. The more your content you publish that is relevant and weighted the more you will get ranked.
Why my analogy at the start? Very simple really, all your hard work can be undone in one short swoop. But keep working your way through the traffic, keep your focus and you will ‘Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World’ of Facebook.
