When it comes to social media sites, it seems that Facebook tops them all. It would make sense, then, for business owners and marketers to at least make an attempt to understand how to market effectively on this social media platform. Unfortunately, this isn’t always easy to do. Read on to find out why Facebook News Feed is what marketers need to be paying attention to and how they can best take advantage of this tool.
Why Is Facebook News Feed Important For Marketers?
There are almost 1.5 billion people on Facebook, and over half of them log into their accounts on a daily basis. With over 900 million active users every day, business owners and marketing professionals have ample opportunity to get in front of their target audience.
One of the best ways for business owners and marketers to reach the people in that audience is by finding a way to get into their News Feed. When a user logs onto Facebook each day, their News Feed is the first thing they see and interact with. It shows them everything they want to know about what’s going on with the people and businesses they know like and trust. When a business works its way into a Facebook user’s News Feed, their potential for brand exposure increases exponentially.
Six Things Marketers Need To Know About Making Facebook News Feed Work
Although Facebook News Feed has tremendous potential for marketers, there are a few things that they need to about how News Feed works:
- EdgeRank, which was the name of the old Facebook News Feed Algorithm, has become obsolete. Facebook has made a lot of changes to its algorithm since it debuted.
- Facebook has determined that it simply cannot show users everything that is going on with their Facebook friends or business pages they like. Consequently, Facebook algorithms seek to deliver only the content that is most relevant to the user.
- Relevancy is often determined by activity and connections. This means that people will see more content from the friends and businesses they interact with the most.
- Something is more likely to show up in a person’s news feed when it has lots of likes and comments.
- The type of content also matters. Photos and videos may be more likely to show up than just text content.
- Promotional content will show up much less. According to Facebook, the company has surveyed their users and the feedback suggests that they want to see less promotional content and more stuff that they actually care about.
For many business owners, missing the mark when it comes to News Feed means not being found at all on Facebook. Keeping these guidelines in mind as they move forward with their marketing efforts will help business owners do the best possible job of actually reaching their audience.
Three Vital Tips For Facebook Marketers To Take Advantage Of
While this information is helpful to understand, what many business owners and marketers want to know is how the above information will affect their marketing strategies moving forward. For those who wish to stay relevant and have their content seen on users’ Facebook News Feed, here are just a few ways they can do that:
- Shift The Focus: Facebook has already determined that users don’t want to see content that is too “sales-y” or focuses only on promoting a product or service. For that reason, businesses on Facebook need to shift the focus of their content from selling to providing value. Figure out how to provide valuable content to users so that they will stay engaged with the business and share content, and updates will continue to show up in their News Feed.
- Engage More: Posts that receive lots of likes and comments are more likely to show up in the Facebook News Feed. The best way for businesses to get more likes and comments is to engage with their audience daily. Encourage questions and reply to comments that people make on posts.
- Get To Know People: In order to post relevant content, a business owner has to know their target audience inside and out. They need to know things like what type of content they’d like to see more of and when their users are more likely to be on Facebook. This helps business owners and marketers in their quest to provide timely content that resonates well with those who engage with the business.
Two Reasons To Let The Professionals Handle Facebook Marketing
While business owners and marketers can certainly take this information and run with it, there are some merits to getting help from a professional when it comes to social media marketing:
- Good social media marketing requires extensive testing that involves a lot of variables. Figuring out what and when to post isn’t always as easy as it seems and can require close monitoring of collected data. A professional online marketing firm will not only have a firm grasp of the thousands of variables that go into determining what ranks on users’ Facebook News Feed, but they’ll save business owners a lot of time and frustration by testing campaigns, collecting data, and making tweaks for them based on that data.
- Marketing on Facebook itself isn’t the only way to get likes, shares, and comments and boost News Feed rankings. For those who have their own website or blog, there are social media tools that they can use to allow their audience to like, comment, and share content directly to Facebook. An online marketing expert will be able to show users how this works and help them rank their content outside of Facebook so that they can boost their rankings inside of Facebook.
As the social media marketing landscape continues to change, Facebook News Feed marketing can sometimes feel like a daunting task. However, when businesses commit to posting only the best content and engaging with their audience, they’ll be able to ensure their relevance and ranking for a long time to come.
For additional information, see this blog from BufferSocial.