On January 11th, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its news feed algorithm to prioritize content from “friends, family, and groups.” Are these changes bad for brands? Perhaps as the changes roll out over the next few months, businesses will most likely see a significant decrease in organic reach. What you have to do to survive?

Is the problem really with Facebook itself?

For most brands and publishers (media companies), Facebook’s primary value is actually traffic and not the community.

Indeed Facebook can really make massive traffic to websites, but it can not provide a strong community in itself.

Consumers use Facebook as a "mini-break," with a very low commitment to engaging in publishing content in this context. What do we get when we are launching content with low engagement visitors, where there is apparently no chance of deeper content consumption? Just the kind of behavior that we have seen for years, the consumer does not have to think and react on a sufficiently emotional basis.

This environment is an excellent breeding ground for false news. Fake news, however, is a problem for everyone, both for visitors and for Facebook as well.

The community giant has come to the fore in solving the problem. In principle, you could choose to change the micro-interaction model to a consumption-based one. To do this, however, is a too massive change, so Facebook tries to optimize the existing environment, keeping the good elements of the system and throwing away the bad ones. That is why it focuses on friendly interactions, as they are the most valuable for the consumer.

The decision doesn't solve the problem of fake news, but it is a comprehensible choice and allows Facebook to continue to increase its revenue.

Unique and valuable content that generates interactions

What has not changed, is the power of valuable content. It's a good idea to ask questions in the posts and to react quickly to the current events that your audience may have.

The point is that users will have a higher chance of meeting content that their friends or family members have commented on.

Increase your ad budget

Organic reach has been declining across social media for years. That means you’ve probably run Facebook ads already.

But now that Facebook is reprioritizing content from brands, these skills will be more important than ever.

Make Facebook Live videos

Videos are still favored under the new algorithm, but live videos will be even more important. In his announcement, Zuckerberg wrote that “live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook - in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.”

This means if you haven’t already invested into posting live videos on Facebook, the time has come.

Create Facebook Groups

Because Facebook Groups already operate on the basis of audience engagement, this marketing tactic will likely serve you well under the new algorithm. Businesses should look into new ways to engage customers with Groups, alongside their Page and advertising efforts.

We wrote more tips on Forbes.hu. 

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