I too, was a little shook up when Mark Zuckerberg first announced Facebook will change its algorithm to promote more personal content rather than news. We marketers have planned entire editorial calendars and inbound strategies around sharing articles on Facebook with the goal of nurturing readers into loyal customers. The last thing we want to hear is that our content will be seen less. BUT FEAR NOT! There is more to the story and a not much to worry about.

The first most important bit of information to know is that the algorithm change will only affect a post’s ORGANIC performance. And let’s be honest, we’ve known for years that organic reach is already unimpressive and incredibly low in comparison to page followers — that’s why we started boosting posts in the first place. So these changes will only make this number lower. Your paid audience targeting will continue to yield results.

Here’s the good news. Facebook’s entire premise on changing things up is to make the News Feed more engaging for people. That means the less junk people see, the more likely they are to be paying attention. In terms of competition your paid posts are a lot more likely to be seen.

“By making News Feed more engaging for people — with Page post creative that is more relevant to them — we’re also creating a better platform for businesses to reach their customers and find new ones.”

Still confused? While this may seem counterintuitive, it actually makes sense. Facebook has conducted an on-going study that asks people how they feel about the content in their newsfeeds.  Unsurprisingly, most people reported that they wanted to see less promotion content and more from friends or pages they care about. Facebook then investigated this feedback and discovered that a lot of the content people see as too promotional is posts from Pages they like, rather than ads.

“News Feed has controls for the number of ads a person sees and for the quality of those ads (based on engagement, hiding ads, etc.), but those same controls haven’t been as closely monitored for promotional Page posts. Now we’re bringing new volume and content controls for promotional posts, so people see more of what they want from Pages.”

So what do Facebook’s big changes mean for marketers? If you’ve been boosting posts, keep doing what you are doing — your content may even start to get better engagement. If you haven’t invested in boosted posts, it’s time to either pay to play or get out of the game.

Have questions about how to take advantage of paid promotions on Facebook? We’re here to help. Just Ask-On-Target!