Unless you've been isolated in a space capsule for the past decade, you'll  know that we live in a world dominated by social media. According to Facebook's personal statistics, on average, the platform's Like and Share Buttons are viewed across almost 10 million websites daily. That's an incredible amount of potential for any brand or business looking to connect with new and existing prospects.

In this day and age, consumers are savvier than ever and prefer to consume content, make purchasing decisions, carry out research, and connect with friends while on the go. In fact, there are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 5.1 billion of them own a smartphone, but only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush - another clear indication of just how vital the leveraging of social media for any business is in the modern age.

If you're using social media to share your latest company news, promote offers, and engage with your target audience, you're doing the right thing. But, much like Google, an internet giant that updates its algorithm on an almost annual basis, Facebook is following suit to ensure it gives its users the best experience possible.These changes are geared towards improving the quality of Facebook's service, but for organizations, like yours, that rely the world's most iconic social media platform to connect, big changes are coming.

To help you understand Facebook's new news feed algorithm, protect your business, and stay ahead of the pack, here are the essential elements and factors you should understand:

 

Facebook's newsfeed wants to provide realtime and personalised news

Naturally, your personal Facebook news feed will be filled with your friends’ baby, job achievements, and holiday pics, as well as a few promotional offers or updates from your favourite companies; however,  have you noticed that  breaking news and personal updates are becoming more and more tailored to your online behaviour?

Well, that's because Facebook's brand newsfeed algorithm is dedicated to providing its users with stories that are most relevant to them.This change essentially means that the average Facebook user will never miss anything important shared by their friends or family, and only see content, news updates, or stories that Facebook feels is relevant to the them, the individual. This intuitive system means that advertisers need to deeply analyse what is their target audience's activity  on Facebook so that their sponsored pieces of content are crafted to their online activity. 

Carry out market research, publish polls, and find out what makes your customers tick. If brands and businesses don't take the time to understand their customers and learn about their wants, needs, problems, and desires on a more personal level, their reach will be considerably hindered, meaning fewer leads, less traffic, and decreased conversions. Look at your personal news feed and make notes on how the information that appears on the news feed is crafted to your own activity on Facebook - this will help you get into a consumer mindset. And for the latest Facebook updates, consult Facebook Newsroom.

Facebook wants to help its users control their experience

In a bid to make Facebook a more sleek, sophisticated, streamlined, and personalised platform, the development team is adding new ways for users to control their experience. In a nutshell, here are the main functions:

1. Unfollow: an updated method of removing all content, interactions, and materials of a business or individual from your news feed.

2. Hide: a function that allows a user to hide certain pieces of content from their news feed at any given time.
3. See first: a button that helps a user prioritise content, interactions, and news from brands, businesses, publications, and other friends so that it appears at the top of their feed immediately after publication.

To avoid being 'hidden' or 'unfollowed', you must make sure the content you are sharing with your audience is relevant to your core values, easy to digest, and most of all, consistent. One piece of weak content could be enough to get you stripped away from the new feed of an enormous amount of prospects, which in turn could prove very damaging. To ensure your workforce stays up to date with the latest social media trends and understand the fundamentals of digital marketing, continuous training is essential.

 

For brands and businesses, Facebook feels that less is more

The new algorithm frowns upon anything it deems to be spam, so if you attempt to bombard your followers with articles, news, updates, or your thoughts and feelings on what's considered too much of a regular basis, not only will users block you, but Facebook will decrease your organic reach.

Rather than sharing everything you have all day, every day, focus on producing quality content including blog articles, videos, infographics, and anything else you feel will be share worthy for your audience. And if you see something someone else has produced that you'd like to share with your followers, do so sparingly and in a tone of voice that will connect with people on a human level.

“You can go from doing something quite silly to something dead serious in the blink of an eye, and if you're making those connections with your audience, then they're going to go right along with it.” - Bruce Springsteen

 

Conclusion

As consumers wise up to plasticity and cheap marketing ploys, social media platforms are doing their utmost to evolve with them.Of course, this provides hurdles and challenges for those looking to connect with Facebook users and ultimately sell their vision, but by being strategic, taking the time to get under the skin of your customers, and keeping up with the latest changes, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Those who fall behind will cease to exist, on Facebook.