Facebook Changes Post Ranking Process: What You Need To Know

Last week, Facebook announced it was making major changes to the way it ranked posts. This is good news for friends and family, bad news for publishers and marketers.

Up until last week, engagement drove views. The more people liked, commented and shared a post, the more likely other people saw it. That’s why we all saw the same memes, Buzzfeed quizzes, etc. But with the new update, Facebook will, “predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed.” That means Facebook will prioritize posts from friends instead of posts from business pages.

What does that mean for marketers? According to Facebook, “Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease.” If your post doesn’t get a reaction, it won’t get views. Lest you think, “No problem! I’ll just post more questions and polls.” Think again. Facebook calls that engagement-baiting, and it’s not going to play. The platform is not going to reward posts that say, “Like this if you’re left-handed,” or “Share this if you agree,” or “Vote for x, y or z.”

So what can you do? Spend money. Sorry, should we have been more delicate? We are living in a pay-to-play social environment. Budget accordingly. Also, hone your audience. Know who your customer is. Refresh your buyer personas if you have not done so recently. Cater to your core. Listen to your core. Target that core and don’t worry about everyone else.

For help with your buyer personas and your content targeting strategies, call us!