The big “talk” in the industry has been that Facebook is “killing” business pages, or that it’s making a play to push all companies and advertisers towards a paid advertising model. That would mean anyone who’s been using the platform on a free basis to stay in touch with customers and promote product news and other information… would now be out of luck because Facebook has said “Pages” are going to index lower if they don’t create meaningful interactions for the audience.
It all started with this blog post the company made a few days ago https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/trusted-sources/
The good news is – it’s not all doom and gloom. Yes, businesses will need to be even more strategic about what they choose to share and how they choose to share it, but at Kompani Group, we always tend to believe that’s a good thing for brands.
All the same, we know many of you have questions about what this means for your social media marketing campaigns in the here and now. Some of the most pressing and frequently asked questions we’ve had are:
Is it time to pull out of Facebook?
Short answer – no. We just need to make sure that content is fresh, relevant, and optimized for this new approach. If you’ve worked with us at all in the past, you know Kompani Group is a big believer in optimization across the board – so this isn’t a big shift for us, strategically. What you MAY see is us making more recommendation about “taking things live” with video of your latest installation, or a forum/round table discussion with some of the experts on your team. But we’re definitely NOT recommending that you dump all facebook marketing.
Should we be focusing more on other platforms like instagram, twitter, snapchat, etc.?
Again, if you’ve been working with us up to this point, we’ve probably already advised that you consider a presence on LinkedIn (particularly those of you in B2B industries) as well as twitter and instagram as is appropriate for your business. What you might be pleasantly surprised to find out is that if we’ve developed video for you to use online in any capacity… it’s already got a home on YouTube. So if you want to create a YouTube channel for your business, Kompani Group can help get that done. Likewise, the more visual and interactive content becomes for social media – the more places you’re going to be able to share it. And we believe that’s a big part of where this is all going… you may not be posting two or three times a week on Facebook anymore – but you will be spreading out your presence across a wider field of viewership.
How do the changes to the Facebook news feed impact marketing budgets?
There’s a lot of concern (rightfully so) that this shift by facebook is going to blast everyone’s social media budgets through the roof. Let us be clear that this doesn’t have to be the case. If Facebook has been your primary source of sales leads, then select paid distributions are likely worth the investment when planned out and scheduled. It’s also worth educating your audience to “See Us First” so that they stay in touch with you as the news feed changes. This is also a great time to let someone like Kompani Group look at your budget and help you figure out a more diverse allocation that achieves the same or better results.
What else can you do going forward? Well, for starters you can request a free social media content review from Kompani Group and learn our recommendations for optimizing your social media presence, and the services we provide to make it simple.
Stay tuned as we continue to explore the changes of Facebook and how your business can still get ahead and stay ahead with Kompani Group on your side.