Facebook’s News Feed Overhaul: How Businesses Can Refocus Their Native Strategy

Published On: January 15, 2018 | Categories: Advertising and Marketing, Social Media |

By: Leah Findley and Heather Weaverling
Facebook’s announcement yesterday regarding updates to the newsfeed has flooded the advertising industry’s discussions this morning. Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced, via a personal post, that Facebook would be making a more concerted effort to increase content that connects people and show less “public” content, such as posts from businesses, brands, and media. For advertisers this proclamation could leave businesses promoting their work through Facebook scrambling for new approaches to social media.

At Strategic America, we think that this is a good change for Facebook. It will have an impact on businesses, as Zuckerberg looks to bring Facebook to its roots of bringing people together. From a business standpoint, though, it just simply means that the ad space will be more competitive. Cost could go up, but more importantly the content of your posts and ads will matter more than ever.

While Facebook is a great platform to include in your marketing mix, keep in mind that depending on the business or product, the site can serve top of the funnel awareness versus bottom of the funnel sales. Content created for a Facebook campaign needs to drive positive conversation and provide relevant, educational information. Facebook has strict guidelines for ads to have the same look and feel of the Facebook news feed which is also known as native advertising. Native ads organically blend with the content and format of a website which is exactly what Facebook wants.

Implementing a native strategy for your Facebook marketing campaigns will enhance your market reach, brand relevance and improve your overall campaign performance. Engagement with your brand or product also increases by allowing users to share and interact with the content of your ads. Native helps you develop a meaningful relationship with your target audience and potential customers.

Below are a few native best practices that can be applied to your Facebook ads:

  • Know your audience
  • Know your business goals
  • Create engaging content
  • A/B test target audience and creative elements in your campaigns
  • Judge success not only on clicks and impressions, but also post engagement

Facebook is always evolving and changing their algorithms. Just because they’re making this update now, doesn’t mean it won’t change again or go back to the way things are. We will continue to monitor the changes over the upcoming months help people stay informed of changes and efficiencies that can be gained working with Facebook campaigns.

Stay up to date with Facebook updates via the Facebook Newsroom. There you can also find additional information regarding the recent post from Mark Zuckerberg.

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