Here’s how to craft a marketing strategy that takes full advantage of Facebook’s update to its news feed
By Julia Wallace | September 27, 2022
The Facebook algorithm has done a bit of a 540-degree turn over the past 10 years. It went from a place where you posted 100 photos from a single night and commented on your friends’ posts — to a place where you read articles and got in fights in the comments — to a place where you were fed tons of video content. For the last couple of years Facebook brought it back to its roots, showing people mainly their friends’ activity in their news feed. This was great for individuals but extremely tough on brands; organic reach was basically not possible.
Then in July 2022 — no joke, as I was in the middle of writing this piece! — Meta announced that it had updated Facebook’s homepage to create two separate feeds: “home” and “feeds.” Much like the recent Instagram update, this sequesters all of your friends’ activity in the “feeds” section. You will still find plenty of this in the “home” section as well, but this is more of a place for discovery, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
And discovery is a GREAT word when we’re talking about organic reach! Here’s what Zuckerberg had to say about how “home” functions:
“Your Home tab is uniquely personalized to you through our machine learning ranking system. This system takes into account thousands of signals to help cut through the clutter and rank content in the order we think you will find most valuable. We’re investing in AI to best serve recommended content in this ranked experience.”
This means if you can create consumable, fun content for your brand on Facebook, it’s very likely going to perform better now than it did a couple of months ago.
So, how exactly do I do that? Here are a few strategies:
1. Reels, Reels, Reels
Yep, we’re going to encourage you to post your Reels to Facebook. The good news is, if you’re already sharing Reels to Instagram, all you have to do is click the button that allows Meta to crosspost automatically to Facebook.
Reels are the No. 1 way to expand your reach organically on Facebook, because Facebook is pushing them to the top of everyone’s feed. If you are dedicated to seeing growth on Facebook, Reels are absolutely the way to do it.
Pro tip: Reels should be fun! DO NOT try to stick to your brand message or make a sales pitch, because no one wants to watch that. Here are some ideas for what to do instead.
2. Tag people
If you are posting a photo of an employee or customer, ask if you have their permission to tag them! (And definitely ask if you have permission to post the photo, too.) If they reshare the photo, it will be much more likely to show up on their friends’ feeds, thereby expanding your reach!
3. Post Facebook stories
Stories are still the first thing people see when they log on to Facebook. Whether you’re automatically sharing your Instagram stories to Facebook or creating unique stories just for this platform, it is a great way to get people viewing your content.
Stories are also a place to be slightly more casual, so it’s a great opportunity to foster brand loyalty!
Julia Wallace
Julia is a Content Creator for AMR. Julia has always loved reading, cooking extravagant meals, and essentially all activities that take place on or near the water. But now that she lives in Boulder you can add hiking uphill to that list, too.