Tactics for Surviving Facebook's Algorithm Changes (Infographic)

As Facebook’s organic reach plummets, brands that have built their social-marketing strategy on a simple, single-platform Facebook strategy will suffer the most.In recent months Facebook released a series of changes to its algorithm, how to start a social media marketing business resulting in the reach of page posts dropping as low as 2 percent for large companies from a reported 16 percent two years ago. Organic reach is the number of people who see a Facebook post without any paid promotion or advertising boosting its performance.What's the solution? Develop the social marketing strategy the company should have had from the beginning: a results-driven effort diversified across multiple social-media platforms and connected to other marketing campaigns.Businesses should harness the power of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Vine as well as Facebook. And they should look at the content and the data collected during these campaigns in more creative ways.On the heels of its first-quarter earnings report, Twitter seems to be struggling to keep its users active. The social-media service added 14 million active users, up about 6 percent from the previous quarter, but not as much as some analysts would have liked.Twitter now counts 255 million active users; Facebook has over 1 billion active users. Keep in mind that an active user as someone who logs into their account once a month, not someone who’s necessarily tweeting regularly.Unless you’re Katy Perry or Starbucks, your brand probably doesn’t have a built-in following. Your first tweet isn’t going to get a lot of traction because no one knows you’re there. So start favoriting, social media marketing best practices retweeting and replying to content that interests you.Find more accounts that are more relevant to your interests, but be selective. There are accounts that may have 100,000 followers, but they also follow 80,000. How in the world will that person ever see anything useful to them? At the same time, don’t feel bad for unfollowing.So what to do if you are one of many that set up a Twitter account and abandoned it? Dust off that handle, and give it another try.

Build a presence on other social networks

In some ways, Facebook has become a victim of its own success. The vast volume of content that streams through the world’s largest social network is one of the main reasons its suddenly decreasing organic reach. Facebook is crowded, social media marketing plan pdf and sometimes posts and photos get lost in this sea of social content.Twitter, Vine, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram are smaller, more targeted and have passionate and engaged users.Social reach is still alive and well on these networks, and companies should leverage this to engage with fans, followers and potential customers.Does the thought of consistently being active on all these networks seem overwhelming? Consider using a single hashtag to combine user-generated content from all social networks into one campaign. By using a branded hashtag, campaigns can elicit responses from Facebook, Vine, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. With tools like Hashtag Gallery, responses with the same hashtag from numerous social networks can be collected and showcased on a website or Facebook landing page, displaying the combined social response to a campaign.A campaign that taps into the entire social media universe will connect with consumers on whatever platform they prefer. This will also help companies gauge the effectiveness of Facebook versus its smaller social siblings. Make a point to spend even five to ten minutes a day reading, favoriting and replying to tweets. Don’t be discouraged if your replies and tweets go unnoticed. The more you tweet, the sooner you will learn what works and what doesn’t.Try not to go days between tweets. Whether it’s a discount code, information on sales or something fun, be active. That said, don’t tweet for the sake of tweeting.The changes to Facebook’s algorithm add up to a growing social-media problem for companies. As companies' social audience shrink, they also realize that they are renting, define social media marketing not owning, their audience. Renting an audience means that companies must pay each time they want to communicate effectively with consumers. Savvy companies are pushing for more ownership of their audiences, and that means collecting during campaigns contact information and other data that allows them to connect with consumers directly.

Measure and optimize social-media performance

The company's Facebook post impressions might be on the decline, but it's still possible to drive business value from social networks. Marketers should shift their focus to measuring the outcomes that matter.Retool the firm's social post strategy by figuring out what content results in engagement, cost of social media marketing clicks and sales. Test a variety of types of content (like status updates, photos, videos, links), and monitor performance. Analyze the days and times when the organization's posts receive the most traction, and change posting habits accordingly. Put the ad budget behind the content that can boost the company's bottom line such as product listings, event promotions and coupons. Monitor, report, and retest the approach. Use contests to gather email addresses and mailing addresses. Discover fans’ interests and then retarget them with ad campaigns. Find the company's most influential fans and followers and form 1:1 connections. Then use this information to connect with consumers, drive them to the company's website and take ownership of them as an audience. This lasting connection with consumers will be a valuable marketing tool even if Facebook’s organic reach disappears completely. Facebook and Twitter built the framework for social sharing, and users provide a constant stream of free content. This concept can be replicated by companies on a much smaller scale, using social networks. Use the company's customers, fans and followers as content producers. Their images, reviews and feedback are powerful and authentic content that can be more persuasive than marketing materials but rarely fully leveraged by companies.If the organization's Facebook posts are getting limited exposure, run contests with prizes or giveaways that encourage fans to submit photos, video or blog content. social media brand marketing Take that content and use it in email newsletters or on the company's blog or website or in-store displays.Don’t limit social content to social media. As the company's Facebook reach declines, make sure that its social content receives exposure in the blog, website and newsletter. Companies can even take that user-generated content a step further by developing regular blog ambassadors or on-the-ground photo teams.