Why the New Facebook Business Ban is a GOOD Thing

If you haven’t heard the news yet, on January 11th, Mark Zuckerberg letting the world know that Facebook would be changing its News Feed algorithm.

Now, users will see more relevant, personal posts from their close friends instead of business and brand postings.

Mark says:

“…Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments [from friends and family] that lead us to connect more with each other…

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.”

This probably sounds pretty good to a lot of people, but for businesses and brands that make a lot of their income off Facebook… well, they probably went into a mini-panic.

I know I did when I first saw this headline:

All of a sudden, all these audiences that companies worked and paid to build wouldn’t be seeing any of their posts. For all intents and purpose, Facebook is now making companies pay-to-play in a user’s News Feed- essentially taking out all a business’s organic reach.

Here’s why that’s not a bad thing at all, and really- probably won’t affect your business as much as you might think….

Facebook News Feed (2007… vs 2018)

I joined Facebook in 2007, and loved it. It was my first year in college, and I’d spend almost all my time on there, looking at new pictures that popped up, keeping up with my dorm mates and new college friends, and sending a creepy friend request to any pretty girl I met in class. Yes, I was on top of the world!

Flash forward a decade, and besides running ads for my business, I’m hardly ever on Facebook. Why? Because my News Feed sucks. It sucks!

On the occasion that I do log on and start scrolling down, I’m inundated with videos from random people that I’ve only met once or twice in my life, and hardly ever see any posts from people I’m close with.

What was once an awesome way of discovering and keeping up with old friends (remember when you found your old Kindergarten crush whom you hadn’t seen since you were 5? Good times!) became a string of random videos posted by your third uncle LaVerne that bared no resemblance to anything you were interested in.

It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t relevant… it seemed WORSE than seeing a bunch of ads. At least those were relevant to what I was doing in life.

Suddenly, Facebook sounds ways more appealing…

As I was reading down Zuckerberg’s post, I actually found myself a little relieved. I felt “heard”.

I’d long griped about how Facebook was relevant to me anymore, now here comes the founder saying, “Got ya- we’re gonna change that!”

I think this is a GREAT thing.

Obviously it’s good for Facebook’s bottom line (ideally people will now log in longer since they’ll be seeing posts from their close friends vs. random acquaintances). But consider what it could mean for businesses.

True, your organic reach will be practically nil, but users will be happier, more engaged. And when people are in better moods, they’re much more open to things like ads and spending time reading through a post.

With a more highly-curated News Feed, filled with posts from close friends, your ads might do BETTER than they were before; happy people make for really good business.

“But what about all my organic reach and page fans?!”

I totally get this- you spent lots of money on likes and building up Facebook fan bases. But guys- that was 10 years ago. It just doesn’t work like that anymore.

Besides, Facebook has long cracked down on the organic reach of business pages, only showing your posts to about 2% of your fan base. So I just don’t see this move hurting businesses that much- maybe that 2%. However, if your margins live and die on 2%, you might want to take a look at your business.

Also, huge Facebook fan bases aren’t what they used to be.

For instance, having 100,000 fans used to be not just a sign of pride, but a sign of social proof- your business was BIG. Beloved. Legit!

But how did you get those ‘fans’?

I remember how I got mine: I paid for them. It was cheap too- in the early days, I got about 1,000 likes on my music page for about $75. Only problem?

Back in those days, people were click-happy. These weren’t “fans”- they MAYBE looked at my page one time, then moved on with their lives. They didn’t buy a CD, a shirt, or tell their friends about me. Social media and business doesn’t really work in practice.

Honestly, they might as well have been bots; just juiced-up numbers that meant nothing in terms of how much money I made. It was a vanity metric. It still is!

So I wouldn’t worry that much about the effect this algorithm change will have on your business- Facebook has been limiting these posts for a long time anyway.

Won’t Ads Get More Expensive?

It definitely stands to reason that with the decline of organic business posts in a News Feed, the demand (and therefore costs) for running Facebook ads will rise- businesses will be clamoring for SOME way to get into their audiences’ feeds.

While that does kinda suck, it’s not doing much more than speeding up the inevitable. Over time, advertising on different platforms just gets more pricey! It did with Google, and it’s getting that way with Facebook now, even over the last few months.

It’s on businesses to figure out different ways to keep costs at bay while still getting customers to visit your sales and product pages.

What YOU Can Do About This

Now that all that’s out of the way, what can you do about it? How can you keep your business or brand posts in front of people (without having to always be running ads).

Well consider how Facebook works- how’s it always worked: Its ultimate goal is to keep people on the platform.

The longer they’re on Facebook and the happier they are, the more ads they see and interact with. Therefore, the more endearing and important Facebook becomes in their lives, and therefore more money rolls in for Zuckerberg and the crew.

With that in mind, getting some of that organic reach and ‘buzz’ comes down to one thing: putting time into creating content that HELPS your fans, as well as entertains them.

That’s how people interact, right? Your text threads with your friends probably look like this:

Right? You send them funny stuff, or stuff that makes them say, “Wow! I had no clue about that!” It’s virtual water cooler talk.

So take the time to create content that’s informative, that HELPS and educates your fans in ways related to your business. And make it entertaining. It doesn’t have to win a Comedy Central award or anything, but try to show a little passion and a little energy in it.

So even though this announcement sounds a little scary and has some businesses scrambling for a new social media strategy, this could actually be a very good thing for you.

Remember: happier, more engaged and entertained people are much more likely to click on that ad and spend some money. So help them do that!