Facebook Marketing Has Definitely Changed. In this MUST READ Article we Review briefly the Fan Page Post Changes that kicked in January and How they’ve Affect Businesses – PODCAST!
Facebook Marketing 101 could take us forever…BUT A friend prompted me via ASK JULIE and I simply have to do the needful! She asked me to explain how the January page post changes affect relationships on Facebook esp. for network marketers and business owners.
Janet, expressed concern that her notifications/posts arent getting many comments including me…! She asked if it was personal…! Sadly NO. Its Facebook algorithm and it affects Facebook marketing, posting, status updates, newsfeeds and the worst hit have been Fan Page posts! When We warned about the effect the changes would have on network marketing and small businesses in our article on Facebook Page Post changes, we had no clue how much! Unfortunately like thousands, Janet is not leveraging Facebook Marketing to her advantage…in fact she could face an FB slap…aka Facebook jail eeeeeiiik!
So listen up, if you use Facebook for business. You may be in the same situation as Janet and it’s no fault of yours. But it will be if you do read this post and keep doing what you do!
Our first observation is facebook wants consistency in our posting. Consider your page to be about customer service, it’s not a sales page anymore…yeah yes I hear you, you started it for Facebook marketing and promotion…well Read on…
Let me make it clear that over 80% of the people I know on Facebook are promoting something or other so they are Facebook marketing. Now Facebook Claims that it’s all about our Audiences, Fans and Subscribers! Facebook wants us to build relationships and be social. And I agree with this…! Dont shoot yet…I really love to empower others to succeed and that’s why I am doing this review.
Any Advantages to the Fan Page post Changes and How it Impacts our Facebook Marketing!
In the beginning I thought the changes sucked, you can see that clearly in this article. But on following and doing what I should have been doing anyway on social media, I noticed some advantages. In my humble opinion I and many other savvy home based business owners who leverage Facebook for organic traffic have realised that Facebook is forcing businesses to focus on Our Fans & Customers! And this cannot be a bad thing at all! WHY?
1. Well all should Build a mental image of who our ideal customer is and find them. Well Facebook makes that job much easier, it has spent a fortune on research and has our ideal customer down pat, all we have to so is leverage their research and resources to find them! We’re supposed to use our Fan Pages to attract said customer through our content, posts, images, updates, quotes, lifestyle shares etc…exactly what we should do on social media…which many seem to have totally forgotten and made Facebook an online Public Market place. Well Mr Zuckerberg isn’t having any of that anymore! And I agree with him on this. Get to know people better; find out their fears, what keeps them awake, what do they like/love, what do they do, are they happy…but do they SEE your posts..hmm! We must think of how we can help them, be that person they come to with their pain. Be normal, imagine having a conversation with someone you meet at a bbq…You wouldn’t possibly say:
“Hey Hazel, I saw you here and I realised you like to make money online, I have this amazing bombastic fantastic money making scheme that just launched and I know you will make a fortune within 2 mins.Join me and I will make you rich…”
Holy Moley…Hazel would walk away from you so fast…Yet on Social Media we expect Hazel to jump with joy and thank her lucky stars you found her! It’s time we aimed to being the leaders we should be & Facebook’s sweethearts. This is where Facebook trusts you and the content you put out. By respecting Facebook rules of play. Our content should reflect that we understand their mission and vision. That we respect the users. Facebook has a right to protect their circle and so should you if you value your account and want to continue using Facebook Marketing as a resource!
Show people that you care about them, build trust and loyalty on your fan page and Status updates. Share things that affect humanity, Your Lifestyle, Your advice and ENGAGE with Your “Friends” posts. Don’t just like and move on, actually say something nice and encouraging. Avoid negative or abusive statements, avoid engaging in negative posts…you will be penalised.
2. Are you one of those people that believe Facebook should let everyone run riot & spam everyone 
all for free…? And you are building a business using their platform right! Think about the kind of people you are attracting! Remember the Law of Attraction…the vibes you are sending out are coming back to you! Facebook marketing is about being a people person not a corporate mind! How would you feel if your business weren’t growing? Exactly, so Facebook has the right to grow, change and diversify…! Don’t get me wrong I feel the pinch when we post our articles and get only 1-3% post reach on our fan page or status update! I know I have to build the trust and prove to Facebook that I have integrity. And so should you! HOW? By being professional
Don’t ask people to buy something, download stuff or even downright asking them to engage with your post like, comment etc. Facebook frowns on this kind of thing! In their view that’s not what Facebook marketing is about! Free Promos are literally out! Regurgitating or sharing stuff that everyone else seems to be sharing doesnt work anymore! So be a lil more original!
3. As a business owner you must have a marketing budget. Get people to come to you. It’s what advertising is about. Your local Walmart doesn’t beg you to go. Use your Fan Page to target your ideal customer…your posts, images, shares, quotes should all be aimed at your Ideal Customer…aka an “Avatar.” Give so much value people naturally love what you do and come to you. Honestly chasing people isn’t necessary if you do the right posting! OR Advertise officially and let the resources Facebook has put in place for business help you. If you don’t know how to leverage Facebook Ads Get in touch with me for help!
I have found that On OUR Fan Page images get more interaction as long as they don’t have links to them…! “Facebook Likes” are no longer effective. Someone must either comment or SHARE! If more people share your content, Facebook feels you are trusted and shows more of your stuff. If your post or status update sits there for hours with no engagement, Facebook buries your content even faster! How do you think this affects your Facebook marketing campaigns…business death! So how do you remedy that? By being more social, comment on and share other people’s original stuff and BUILD RELATIONSHIPS…so that other people are happy to comment on your updates, Look for your content & share it too! By the way the quality of comments matters… so think twice before leaving a short: Thanks, Great, Hey, etc…MAKE CONVERSATION, COMMUNICATE with your friends like they are with you…be social! Remember bbq chat…you would make conversation as opposed to single word responses wouldn’t you?
My experience and personal View of Facebook Groups:
Most of us are members of various “Closed Groups” for purposes of Facebook marketing, engaging, syndication, exchange etc. I noticed the 80/20 rule at work in most of the groups I am a member of. Guess what Facebook is watching. I have it on authority that if you are a member of a group and you aren’t engaging as per the group rules, this is hurting YOUR PERSONAL and BUSINESS posts reach too!
How…?
Most people visit a group post their link, might read an update or two and leave. They don’t leave a comment, they may not even check out other members links, they are takers not givers. Facebook has already penalised you…How are your personal newsfeed posts or Fan page posts doing? You get what I am saying here…? So you have two options. Leave some groups if they aren’t useful to you anymore! (I am talking closed, secret groups) OR Get active GIVE your time, BE SOCIAL in these groups. Results…you will get noticed and more people will come to you, as they trust you. You are social, you engage and YOUR personal updates will get more engagement from said people and others; give & receive! You will also get more people engaging on YOUR Fan Page. Facebook is Monitoring and Tracking your activities linked with their brand online and your actions are hurting your brand and marketing strategies! If Facebook slaps you, it takes months to regain their trust so be very careful about what you do!
Visit your successful competitors and see what they do within Facebook Marketing, Do it too.
a) If you are using videos to market on Facebook make sure they are between 60secs – 2mins max. WHY? Because most people will watch a short video thru and this makes FB bots think your audience likes what you are sharing! Which is great for your fan page post reach and of course other posts too!
b) One of the best ways to leverage Facebook marketing & get engagement is to post an image with a great description! But lately I noticed that it’s better to leave the link in the description if you are asking people to check out something; as opposed to deleting the link and using the image as the link…I guess Facebook finds this sneaky now…!
Every time we use Catchy aka Baiting Headlines even on an image, we get a lot less post reach. We’ve done some research and advise that DON’T USE baiting headlines in your description. Facebook frowns on these & is tracking! If people don’t engage with said content e.g. a video…well it hurts your post reach for the future! Facebook isn’t bothered that masses are leaving, it wants quality users not masses of spammy tammys as my friend Angel Balichowski jests!
My View on the future of Facebook Marketing
Facebook has to store all our images, articles, updates, videos etc…Space is the issue…You must agree there is a finite amount of space to display billions of information. This is a quagmire that I think limits Facebook’s breadth. PLUS it’s a business with shareholders, so it had to monetize the limited space & keep them happy! The only route they felt they had is to display posts by “Users” that pay the most money. I am afraid this effectively eliminates general and personal users and small businesses that don’t boost from the newsfeed because Facebook is loyal to its shareholders & profit margin. I Believe Facebook Marketing is now as commercial as Adwords and begs the Qn is Facebook social anymore? Irrespective of what they say, you either pay for your “billboard space or 15 Sec TV Ad” or get buried!
If you aren’t following the new rules to the letter and aren’t making Facebook any or much money, they’re systematically eliminating you from the newsfeed. I know a brand that had over 800k organic reach and this dropped 95%+. Personally I didn’t find any like-baiting, and their images are quite original i.e. branded! I got the feeling Facebook punished such organisations success… they didn’t need to pay for Ads, they’d built an active fan base…Now they must pay or leave!
Some believe this spells the downward spiral of Facebook. Jon Loomer blasts one such post Here!
Wrap up: In order to keep in Facebook’s good books with your “Marketing,” via page posts & status updates, its best to play their game. Boost a post at least once a month for $5 that isn’t much. It makes you a “Loyal user” & keeps you in their good books! Keep up with the trends and share such (Buzzsumo, Feedly, scoop.it & Google are great resources). Use videos & ensure they are shared and get lots of views. ENGAGE with your friends…they are your friends aren’t they? So connect more, visit their newsfeeds. Facebook has empowered people so they can filter, unfollow, hide & block your posts. So Enamour your feinds and followers so they want to see, hear more from you and the Facebook algorithm changes wont hurt you so much! You will become a trusted user and more of your posts will be shown to more people…Or will they!
If You want to Listen to This Article Or Share it in AUDIO Form Here Is The PODCAST Link Below or Listen live:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/pkjules/effect-of-jan-facebook-algorithm-changes
What are your thoughts on this Review? And what results are you seeing? Share below!
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I have read so many articles about the blogger lovers but this piece
of writing is truly a pleasant article, keep it
up.
Awesome. Thanks for your comments.
Greetings from Ohio! I’m bored at work so I decided to check out your blog on my iphone during lunch break.
I love the information you present here and can’t wait to take a look when I get
home. I’m amazed at how quick your blog loaded on my
mobile .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, awesome blog!
Hi Charmain,
Glad you got bored and surfed, we imagine you were looking for articles on Facebook Marketing 🙂
Hopefully you found what you were looking for bored or not!
Thanks for your comment!
awesome read and true .
Glad you Like Juanita 🙂
Thank you for your tips on FB Marketing… I was not aware that inactivity in groups would affect my personal and fanpage post from being seen.. It is true as you said that FB wants the human eliminate to be first and foremost. I have found that it is necessary to have an advertising budget like you said to get my post exposure and engagement. The secret here is to choose the right target audience(Avatar) to put that ad in front of..Also equally important is to make sure that post content gives them value. Thanks again for your expert advice.
You are most welcome Lorena.
Yes inactivity in your Closed and secret groups affects your Personal fan Page reach too. Iy means you are not a “Social” entity. I learned that from a superstar in FB Marketing and its true. Thanks for dropping by
Wow Juie found that really interesting and informative. Thanks for shring
Hey Diana,
We are glad you found it informative and you are most welcome!
~Julie~
Your Amazing thanks for all you do
Our Pleasure Reggie,
We are glad you find Value in what we do & share.
Thanks for dropping by!
~Julie~
Hey Julie-
These are some great tips and updates on marketing with your Facebook fan page! A lot to keep track of and this gets to the nitty gritty!
I like point #3 the best, you must have a marketing budget. Ummmm, yeah! Every “real” business does.
Cheers, Jeff
Wow Julie, That was in depth, I just am not all that familiar with facebook and I guess I missed the glory days! I actually try to keep up with friends and their posts, etc. Time is an issue though, do you have any suggestions? Have you thought of outsourcing any of the social media activity? I do notice that I don’t get people to my fb page unless I promote it. I think that’s sad. Thanks for letting us know the “state of facebook”.
Hey Robert dont beat yourself up too much. Most of us have learnt FB as we go and just as we master a part of it, they pull the rug from under us…The best way is to keep abreast via Facebook for Business. They are quite good at keeping that page up to date with news, chnages, updates suggestions and even surveys. We are in it just at the right time my dear
whne hey are making the experience for businesses more interesting. I embrace change for I believe it will always turn out for my good whatever the situatio. My suggestion is that whatver the Changes facebook brings out, as a business owner, use Ads and leverage the resources they put together. The more ads you put out and they approve the more of your stuff they show to your audience as well…
awesoe stuff, thanks for sharing this on facebook
You are most welcome Sheena,
Glad you like 🙂
~Pauli~
Great information here Julie. Facebook wants to give the customer the best experience. With your suggestions we will.
Thanks Ginny,
We sure Have to trust that they are and Follow their rules, They have the resource we are leaseholders 🙂 Above all our customers deserve the best and we have the potential to ipmact lives
Hi Julie – I really liked this post. It is sometimes frustrating to understand where FB is coming from especially for a newbie and your post really hit the nail on the head. It all about bringing value to your customer. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Nancy,
I understand your frustration and I urge you to focus on learning what FB wants from you to help you grow your business. Help them Help you, or Play strictly by their rules. FB is doing what FB wants to do to please their shareholders and keep the profit margin high…its as simple as that! Your job is to utilize every tool you have to please Your shareholders… for most Home Businessess owners its Family & friends and Increase your profit margin!
Thank you for dropping by!
a lot of people is scared of facebook changes, i was 1 of them until learned what i was doing wrong thanks for sharing.
Juanita,
I am sure glad you leart how to leverage Facebook for your business and doing it the right way. I would love to know what you know 🙂
How have the chnages affacted you? For the better I believe from your comment above, thats awesome sauce.
Hey Julie this is very informative and helpful insight to facebook changes. I see all the platforms making changes as they all want to see more value and positive experience for their users and mostly to attract the advertisers as well. Thanks for sharing!
Yes Lynn you are indeed right And I am very excited about the New Twitter Advertising additions, Instagram is simply amazing in terms of speed of growing an audience and one must learn how to leverage that and trun these followers into raving fans…Facebook owns Instagram so its only a matter of time too! Facebook marketing has been evolving for yonks and most people cant keep up, numerous others dont even have a clue whats going on…! Change is the one constant in life, we must embrace it!
Thanks for dropping by.
Thanks for the great marketing tips. Facebook can be very confusing sometimes and you helped clear up some of my confusion.
Hi Sandy,
I am sure glad I have helped clarify some things for you.
Facebook marketing has actually been consistently about Customer/ audience focus for a while.
even when you create an Ad, it has to be realistic and not promise paradise if there is no proof of the Santa Chariot!
It has also been pushing towards Paid Ads for a while and what is confusing now is the claim that all was done because the people asked for it…People actually can ignore what they dont want and it goes away. I dont know when anyone last sent me a Zynga game request..because I sismply deleted them or iginred them. So freedom of choise could have been left..so it all boils down to “real estate”…The space to save and keep a shedload of stuff onscreen for when Joe a social user next logs in a week/month/yr later just wasnt practical. And for business, well we have to Play their Game or Pay to play! And that is all its about!
This is awesome value put together! Thank you!
We thankful you took time to write it all down. Now we are totally up to date again :-).
Hey Dirk & Muriel so good to hear from you.
My pleasure indeed, Iam so glad you are now on point and I hope the implementation
will bear better results for us all 🙂
Thanks for taking then time!
Great info for Facebook Marketers Thanks for sharing Julie!
My Pleasure Trishaly. Thank You for passing by 🙂
Great information Julie. Frankly, we’ve had quite a free ride on FB for a while. I honestly can’t blame them for wanting us to pay for the ads. And the rest of FB interaction ought to be social and value-laden. My pocket book is not thrilled with the changes, but after all…..?
Thank You Carol.
I totally agree with you we have had a Free ride for yonks and those that recognised its
great advantages leveraged it and created empires and huge fan bases and Free lists.
Frankly Many paid small fortunes for Page likes and Post Boosts…I feel a lil sorry for these
as now they literally have to ensure they produce Just the kind of Content Facebook loves
or Pay for the same Fans they paid to acquire to see their content!
As business owners/entrepreneurs we should relly understand.
No body likes it when a FREE RIDE ends and becomes a Paying one
yet chnage is necessary and we definitely need Facebook …for now! so We must
Play by their rules or get lost in the general noise.
And there is quite a lot of that on Facebook!
Faceboo Marketing has changed, those that stay the distance and
play right will become FB sweethearts & WILL continue to make a killing!
Thanks for that contrinution and for swinging by!
Some great advice
Thanks fir the great marketing tips. Trying to stay consistent.
Our Pleasure Melinda, Stay Consistent, DONT TRY…DO IT…
Trying leaves you room for doubt and quitting
Well thats what one of our Mentors Sean always says!
So Get it done whatver you need to do consistently!
This is excellent FB marketing advice. Will post on Pinterest
Thank You Stephanie, We aim to please and We appreciate your shares and support.
Lots of great info here!! Thanks for sharing. It’s really important for us to stay up to date especially if we are using Facebook for Business!
Lots of great info here!! Thanks for sharing. It’s really important for us to stay up to date especially if we are using Facebook for Business!
You are most welcome & What an honour to see you here Toby & Layla, Awesome.Its absolutely essential to stay up to date with The platforms we use for our business and socialising. It used to be okay to Bus our businesses off of our personal accounts, and then it became clear we had to seperate the two and many who did created Fan Pages and leveraged them to high heavens, many made a killing from them. Now Facebook is saying its time they got in on the revenue…I kinda agree with them. As a business owner its only fair they too profit from the billions of users…! Thanks for your contribution and taking then time!
Engagement is a must especially for social media. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Xavier,
Basic Liking is engagement, “A simple Thanks” is engagement, a Few months ago these were okay on Facebook…Not anymore. Facebook is tracking the “QUALITY” of engagement in that a comment thats a full sentence or two means that person is more into what you are sharing and they will show them more of YOUR stuff and Vice versa. A like isnt enough anymore. Facebook is ooking to Gte back to Social and Business as Business…A proper demarcation! Whether this works long term….I shall share my views in 3 months 🙂
Hi, Thanks for sharing these stuff. Also, for your experience and personal View of Facebook. It was awesome!
Hi Mike,
Glad you liked it 🙂 Its good to share our experiences as they help shorten the learning curve for others and makes their journey better!
Its our intention to help as many people succeed online as possible by sharing our experiences, knowledge and research and we are so happy when other entrepreneurs find value!
Love the info you shared here. I agree with what you suggest in side the Facebook groups as well. Keep adding the value!
We are so glad yyou loved our Facebook marketing review Alecia, Its our aim to keep adding value and sharng our experiences. If they help even 1 person shorten the learning curve & journey, thats a blessing. T
Thank you for swinging by!
The best tip is consistency
We are Glad you liked it Booker 🙂
Great post and advice! Thanks
Please Nestor, good of you to pass by!
Glad you liked our Facebook Marketing Review!
~Pauli~
Good stuff here! I try to follow the rules am much as I can.The problem is they keep changing it up and “Evolving” so I really appreciate this post about Facebook Marketing I learned some things I did not know.Thanks Juile!
Hey Colleen,
Good to see you here. What I can say is that If you keep sharing value, lifestyle, developmental posts and images, Videos that help others grow, Facebook will share your stuff as you will be in their good books.
Its always a good idea to ask our good friends, supporters and family to visit our pages and posts and leave a a good comment, and we must reciprocate. And this helps keep our value content visible. If we give, we will receive!
Glad you have learnt some things. Thats why we do what we do!