A couple weeks ago Facebook made an announcement that they are changing their news feed algorithm to emphasize posts from friends and family over those from brands and publishers because that’s what people prefer to see.
It’s not uncommon for people to Like over 100 brand and interest pages, and the median number of friends is 200. If even a few of those friends are active in posting it’s impossible for a person to see everything. So Facebook needs to prioritize and personalize what you see.
This continues a trend by Facebook that goes back three or four years and serves Facebook’s purposes, too. Whereas several years ago a brand’s posts might have been seen by 10-15 percent, or more, of people who liked that brand, today the average is just a couple percent. (Interestingly the percentage reach for very large pages — those with over 500,000 Likes — is even lower.) And now it’s going to drop even lower.
So the only option for a brand to be seen is to pay for Facebook ads.
Or post insanely interesting content that gets a high level of engagement (shares, likes and comments). Try new formats. Constantly test what works for your audience: Surveys? Photos? Videos? Contests? What time of day or week is best?
And if you are going to pay for ads, the most effective ads may be to promote your content that’s getting a high level of engagement. Not what you wish will, but what actually does.
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