Algorithms, algorithms…. It’s the buzzword when it comes to social media these days but do the people talking about it even know what an algorithm is?

It’s not used just by people in the digital world now.

Your annoying Aunt Mary who posts her whole life to Facebook and thinks that when people post they’re sending it directly to her, is now sharing posts telling people to comment on her feed because Facebook will hide you away forever, otherwise!

This is slightly dramatic and not what the new Facebook algorithm is about…. Mark Zuckerberg actually wants you to see what your friends are up to.

In his announcement on January 11^th MZ said that Facebook had changed the news feed algorithm to prioritise content from “friends, family and groups.”

[Check out the episode of the Fuzion Win Happy Podcast “Frustrated about Facebook“ where Greg Canty and Alma Brosnan from our digital team chat about this issue]

Since last June, he has placed a huge push on Facebook groups and using those to build communities.

The algorithm is just another one of those changes to (theoretically at least) help users see content they want to see (however, you may not want to see an album of Aunt Mary’s holiday pictures!) and interact meaningfully with their friends and family.

The only users being negatively impacted by these changes are Business Pages who have already built a solid audience through organic reach and engagement.

Facebook are now saying that Business Pages will still be able to reach customers through “meaningful interaction”.

What is meaningful interaction to you and your business page?

• To some businesses, it’s posting special offers for their followers
• To others, it can be rewarding followers with a competition and prize giveaway

Both of these types of posts are affected by the new algorithm.

Facebook have said using “engagement-bait” (deliberate content to get people engaging) to encourage users to comment or share is not a meaningful interaction and these posts will be demoted in the News Feed of users (eg – they won’t see these posts!!).

Examples of “engagement-bait” include:

• React baiting: Asking people to react to the post (includes like, love, haha, wow, sad, and angry)
• Comment baiting: Asking people to comment with specific answers (words, numbers, phrases, or emojis)
• Share baiting: Asking people to share the post with their friends
• Tag baiting: Asking people to tag their friends

So, all those competitions that pages ran asking people to “like, comment & share” are exactly what Facebook don’t want to see anymore.

(ironically most of these tactics were being used to “beat” the previous algorithms!)

How can Business Pages get around this?

You should follow what Facebook wants from you, and post relevant content that they believe your followers want to see.

Begin by creating quality content (in our view this should always be your number one priority, regardless of social media platform) that you believe will start a conversation on your page (ideally this will be a conversation between fans of your page).

Highlight the personality of the business and use that voice and tone consistently throughout your posts.

Include questions in your posts that will generate interesting answers in the comments so that you can then interact with your audience.

What we seem to have forgotten in all of this is that the point of creating a Business Page was to interact and promote your offerings to customers.

We all just got too caught up in counting the number of followers and wondering who those three people from Malaysia looking at your page were!!

It’s time to bring it back to basics and start building relationships with the followers on your Pages again.

Or if all else fails…. Just turn to Facebook Advertising!  

Is this the real agenda of Mark Zucherberg?

Alma

Alma Brosnan is part of the Social Media Consultancy team at Fuzion Communications who have offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland