Major Facebook Changes Announced: What Does That Mean For Business?

At Radiant, we try to stay in the know, so we can help YOU stay in the know. Small businesses need to stick together, am I right? The latest announcement from Mark Zuckerberg last week brings a lot of speculation about the new Facebook changes and how it affects small business success. We’re here to help break it down for you, bullet-point style.

Here are a few excerpts from Zuckerberg’s announcement post with some Radiant translations.

❝…we’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. 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.❞

Radiant Translation: Business content that creates community will be favored and put in front of the Facebook audience.

❝…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.❞

Radiant Translation: Another way for businesses to engage customers is with Groups. Again, the focus is shifting towards building a community-feel. Facebook wants to help create meaningful connections.

❝…there are many tight-knit communities around TV shows and sports teams. We’ve seen people interact way more around live videos than regular ones.❞

Radiant Translation: Facebook will continue to aggressively grow it’s Watch digital television platform and favor content in the News Feed from shows and live broadcasts, particularly regular episodic content (per another recent News Feed algorithm change Facebook made that favors video content where viewers come back to watch week after week).

Live videos also get 6x the engagement as non-live ones. This means if you haven’t already invested time and energy into posting live videos on Facebook, you 100% should do so now. This is one of the few concrete examples of content that will perform well under the new algorithm included in the announcement.

In conclusion…

this is obviously a HUGE update. What Facebook seems to be telling us is that content with a lot of engagement and conversation will be prioritized. This means comments and replies are now the goal.

While this change seems daunting, it is truly an “opportunity for brands to pivot their content toward driving a meaningful conversation” and interactions.

To see solid ROI on Facebook, businesses must care about what Facebook cares about. In 2018, that’s VIDEO/LIVE + MOBILE + COMMUNITIES/GROUPS. Also, what likely won’t be impacted? Ads. Advertising on Facebook and Instagram can still dramatically grow your business. Definitely a silver lining!

So keep your chin up, small business owners. While platform changes can be daunting, we believe with a little ingenuity and a lot of strategic planning, we can smash our 2018 goals and manage to come out ahead.