What Does Facebook’s Latest News Feed Update Mean for You?

You may have heard the news that last night Mark Zuckerberg announced some big changes are on the way for the News Feed. Zuckerberg said, in a Facebook post, “I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

But what does this mean for small businesses? And, more specifically, for your business? We’re here to help you navigate the Facebook changes. But first, take a look at Zuckerberg’s full post below if you haven’t already.

A stronger focus on meaningful social interactions

So what’s the Facebook announcement all about? Well, Zuckerberg explains that, “At its best, Facebook has always been about personal connections. By focusing on bringing people closer together.” Based on this, Facebook is changing up the News Feed to put more emphasis on these personal connections.

As a result, they’ll be focusing on serving up content in the News Feed that encourages meaningful interactions. In other words, content that’s getting lots of engagement.

This doesn’t mean that Facebook is blocking businesses from the News Feed entirely. But, Zuckerberg says, “you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

What does this mean for you?

We know changes like this can be scary, especially if Facebook is a big part of your marketing strategy. That said, as a small business owner looking to promote yourself and share your passions, this move by Facebook isn’t ultimately directed at you. It’s a reaction to a growing number of posts from businesses, brands, and media that are, as Zuckerberg puts it, “crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

However, as a small business, you should continue to create content around your passions that inspires, educates, and entertains—content that is valuable to viewers and encourages engagement and conversations.

What can you do?

We’re all navigating this change together and we’ll be testing out ways to stay successful, despite this change, and sharing our findings with you.

But with this news in mind, there are some things you should think about when creating videos for your business that we think will help you get in front of a relevant audience in the News Feed:

• Provide value. First and foremost, make sure you’re providing value. Post content that customers will want to share, like, and have conversations around in the comments.
• Quality over quantity. Don’t worry about getting videos up just for the sake of getting them up. Instead, spend your time on creating relevant videos your audience will care about. Relevant content to a relevant audience will always win out in the long term.
• Have conversations. Don’t just post a video and walk away. You should be joining in the conversation too. If someone comments, respond. Ask questions. Create interactions and communicate with people who share your passions.
• Utilize Facebook’s ad targeting. Facebook Ads Manager isn’t going anywhere, and you should still be able to get your videos in front of a relevant audience using their great targeting tools.
• Tap your personal network. Try sharing a video from your business page to your personal page and let your friends get the conversation started.
• Continue using Instagram. Continue to establish your presence on Instagram. Instagram is growing fast and there’s lots of opportunity to create conversations and get in front of potential customers there as well.
• Continue to stand out with video. Video continues to get further reach and engagement than other types of content. Take advantage of this trend.

We’re all in this together

As I mentioned above, we’re all navigating this change together. Nobody can be sure what this change will ultimately mean, but we’ll be here for you throughout everything. We’ll be sharing updates as they come in, doing our own tests and letting you know how things are going. How is this affecting our own Facebook presence? How is it affecting our own Facebook advertising results? We’ll let you know.

To stay a part of the conversation and let us know how you’re feeling about this change, join us in the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community, our private Facebook group, and follow us on our Facebook page.