How to help your Facebook business page reach with news feed changes in 2018

What’s changing in Facebook News Feed?

Facebook is making changes to what is displayed in everyone’s news feed.  Facebook business page owners will see a reduction in reach. People will see less public content including, video, news and posts from businesses/brands. 

Find out how you can help your business page remain more visible in 2018 below…

Facebook will prioritise posts that:

• are from your friends, family, high-quality news sources and local news.  The idea is that you will see topics that have a direct impact on you and your local community.
• spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. Facebook will predict which posts you may want to interact with (and your friends) and these will appear higher in your news feed. These type of posts are ones that have back and forth discussions in the comments.  

So what can a business do?

You need your business page posts to generate conversation between people in order to feature higher in news feed.

Live videos are a good example of this – Facebook reports that live videos often see six times more interaction than a regular video.

The changes mean that owners of business pages may see a decrease in their reach, video watch time and referral traffic.

This will vary from page to page due to the type of content being produced and how people interact with it. So, if your posts prompt conversations you will not notice a change as much. But if your posts don’t have people commenting or reacting you will see a big decrease in distribution.

There is a workaround to keep your business’ posts more visible

If you want to guarantee that your business posts are seen by your fans, you need to educate and encourage them to request to see your posts first.

This is what you need your followers to do: 

Business Page:

• Go to the business/brand page whose posts you want to see. Check that you ‘like’ the page.

• Then hover over the word following and select ‘see first’ from the drop down menu. This will ensure these posts will appear first in that individual’s news feed.

Personal Profile:

• You can also do the same for individual personal profiles.  Go to the personal profile and ensure you are friends

• Hover over the word following and select ‘see first’.  

Facebook News Feed Focus Checklist

In 2018 Facebook is prioritising:

• Posts that spark conversations and interactions between people
• Posts from friends and family over public content
• News that you will find useful and informative and is relevant to your local community
• News from publications who are rated as trustworthy

Top Tips for Facebook Business Page Owners and Admins

• Write posts that promote conversation – ask questions, ask for people’s opinions, be a little controversial sometimes 
• But don’t get involved in ‘engagement bait‘ – ie don’t pressurise people into commenting/sharing on your posts ie “LIKE this if you’re a Leo” or “Comment your best friends name to win a spa day for you both”
• Start doing Facebook live videos 

The rollout of these news feed changes will start in the US and then will expand to more countries throughout 2018.

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