Facebook’s numerous changes to its algorithm have many marketers scratching their heads. With the social network changing the content users see every few months, every business is scrambling to keep up.
Before we talk about paid ads, let’s talk about native reach.
Facebook’s stated goal is to please users by showing them what they most want to see. In a June Newsroom post, engineer Lars Backstrom made it pretty clear that Facebook is aware the changes will disrupt businesses. He wrote:
Overall, we anticipate that this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some pages.
That’s basically saying, ?Sorry, but this is going to cause a 42 percent drop in reach.? If that doesn’t make your heart stop, you’re probably not a marketer. Beckstrom went on to explain that you will lose less traffic if your followers share your content, and their followers like and share. So, you get more reach if you generate more reach–got it.
Just don’t try to generate reach with clickbait, because that’s another thing on the hit list.
To sum it up, every change makes organic (read: free) reach a less viable option. Is it an evil plot to pump up advertising spend" Possibly.
Joe Lazauskus, editor in chief at Contently, theorizes that marketers will respond to Facebook?s big algorithm change with more ad spend, which will, in turn drive up the price of ads:
As publishers stare at their declining reach, Facebook?s dashboard wi...