“This is it. Don’t get scared now.” it’s my favorite line from Home Alone (hey, don’t judge me) and has been our mantra at Bustle & Grow since last year when we learned that Facebook planned on implementing some serious changes for 2018. If you’ve taken Bustle & Grow’s most recent social media class, Using Your Facebook Business Page, then you’re already one step ahead of the game, so as you read this post go ahead and feel good about already knowing the inside info!
This week Mark Zuckerburg announced that the rumors we’ve been hearing about the changes are true. Businesses are going to have to rethink the way we are marketing to our audience via Facebook, for a number of reasons. In the end, the overall goal being to keep social media users more happy, less depressed, and more engaged.
Facebook conducted several in-depth surveys, analysis, and studies, and put great effort into understanding how people were using social media as well as how it was affecting their lives. For a long time, Facebook denied the theory that social media could be having a negative impact on its users offline wellbeing. Now, not only have they changed their tune, they’ve invested time, money, and genius minds to figure out what’s actually happening and how to make it better.
As Facebook users, we’ve made it clear to the social media giant that we are fed up with advertising disguised as social media posts, fake news, and irrelevant topics; because whether we realize it or not, this stuff was really ticking us off. As Facebook users, these changes are going to be awesome…we hope!
So what should businesses do to stay in front of their audience? Follow the People First marketing mindset. Facebook introduced this idea and almost overnight major brands were jumping on the bandwagon in their media content.
Our audience doesn’t want to be sold to, they want to experience engagement with their friends, family and some info from the pages they follow; as long as the info is relevant, original, timely, entertaining, and educational.
The best course of action for small business owners and marketers is to educate yourself on the details and throw everything you think you know about marketing out the window when it comes to organic Facebook posts… Ads are a whole other story.
Check out our online courses or in-person classes in Maine. Bustle & Grow also offers individual and online consultations.