February 04, 2018

Posted By: Scotty Spielman

It seems like every few months, we have to write about another change in the Facebook newsfeed algorithm that will reduce the organic reach for your business page.

That’s probably because, every few months, we have to write another post about the algorithm change—it happens that frequently.

Last year, the change resulted in yet another drop in organic reach, reducing it to as little as one percent. The idea was to tweak feeds so that users will see more of the things they want to see and less of what businesses want them to see—and to pull in more money from advertising, of course. That worked, because Facebook just realized its most profitable year yet.

As a result? The algorithm will change again and, once again, hit business marketers hard—or, at least, those still foolish enough to think a grassroots approach will work. The latest change will reduce your organic reach even more, because it will promote posts by friends and families over any type of business or marketing content.

“People tell us they come to Facebook to connect with friends. They also say they want to see news about what’s happening in the world and their local community,” Facebook wrote as they announced the change. “We’ve announced changes to prioritize posts from friends and high-quality news sources. Today, we’re updating News Feed to also prioritize local news so that you can see topics that have a direct impact on you and your community and discover what’s happening in your local area."

News feeds will also show an increased emphasis on people-to-people interaction.

Here's why you shouldn’t freak out: We’ve been here before. Facebook isn’t doing anything new, they are just continuing a trend they started when businesses and marketers threatened to take over most news feeds and effectively bleed the ‘social’ out of ‘social media.’

Social media marketing hasn’t been free for years. You’ve either had to spend money creating the content or spend money boosting the content. Now, it is more about the two-way conversation and interaction. It’s the interaction that drives the algorithm, no matter what platform you’re using.

There are things you can do. First, loosen your wallet, if you haven’t already done so. Facebook advertising or Google Adwords are still relatively cheap ways to expand your reach and attract new customers.

So far, Facebook Live videos have defied the change in the algorithm. They will show up more often because they tend to invite engagement. This trend probably won’t last too long, though. You’ll also have to continue to create good content and boost the content that already gets a lot of engagement. Users are more likely to respond to a marketing post if they see that it already has attracted conversation when it shows up in their feeds.

So this latest change isn’t the end of the world—it’s just the continuation of a trend. Have you noticed the change. What did you do? Let us know in the comments!