The Facebook Apocalypse is Here: What You Can do to Survive

Whether you’ve spent years building up hundreds of thousands of Facebook page followers for yourself or a client, or you’re launching a start-up and just building a social presence, we’re all wondering the same thing: Is Facebook still worth it?

What Is the Facebook Apocalypse

Over the past year, Facebook organic reach has dwindled. Even pages with thousands of followers had to think through different strategies for trying to outsmart the algorithm, or others have given up and moved their focus to Instagram. On January 11, this Facebook Newsroom article confirmed marketers’ fears and finally put in writing the algorithm changes that have started to and will continue to more drastically impact Facebook organic reach.

The Newsroom article and Zuckerberg’s post make a few key points about how Facebook is updating its algorithm over the next few months:

1. The Facebook algorithm has always prioritized content posted by friends and family over public content (posts from a business page) and will continue to do so.
2. Signals such as how many users react to, comment on, or share posts will determine how high in the News Feed posts will appear.
3. That being said, the post must inspire genuine back-and-forth discussion in the comments (think: friends asking for recommendations, a video that sparks discussion). Therefore, posts that ask users to “Comment with the word BASKETBALL to get your free guide” might receive a ton of comments, but will not get algorithm points for sparking discussion, which means they’ll likely be penalized and no longer show up very high in users’ News Feeds.

How to Survive in Facebook Marketing After the Algorithm Update

You might be thinking that your business page is now screwed because organic reach—as you started experiencing months ago—is essentially zero. I don’t have to share Facebook usage stats for you to already know that your potential customers spend time on Facebook. I’m here to tell you that all hope is not lost, and there are a few ways that you can move forward from the Facebook apocalypse to generate more engagement and ROI from the platform than you have in the past. These strategies certainly require dedication and consistency, but below are some ideas (some tested, others not yet) that might work for you.

Facebook Live

Unless you’ve denounced social media for the last year, you’ve noticed how Facebook Live is playing a huge role in users’ experiences on Facebook. Live videos often lead to discussion among Facebook viewers, which means they get pushed to the top of the feed. In fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos. Want to try your hand at Facebook Live? Below are a few additional thoughts on making sure this helps you generate more engagement instead of just becoming a headache:

• Schedule your Facebook Live events. You have the ability to schedule when you’ll be live from your page (within Publishing Tools)—take advantage of this, as Facebook favors content that viewers come back to watch week after week.
• Offering a freebie. For example, offering a useful free guide that’s relevant to the content during the live video can encourage engagement.
• Ask the audience questions throughout the live session to keep them engaged. It helps to have someone monitoring, posting, and responding to questions while the live video is going.
• Involve others. It’s important for people interviewed or featured in the video to share the live broadcast on their personal page. You can also encourage other employees to share the live broadcasts. This will greatly expand reach, as posts from actual people, as opposed to business pages, garner more engagement.
• Set up a Facebook Messenger Bot such as ManyChat that will notify your page subscribers (anyone who has messaged your page) via Facebook Messenger when your page goes live. If you’re curious, Social Media Examiner has a great how-to article.

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