We just released an article talking about how to beat the algorithms using genuine and relevant content in a humanly way. We stated that the tricks and tips are key factors, but only if you’re first being human. We had no idea this would happen at the time of writing it but it emphasizes our point even more: Facebook is giving you back more control. How? By finally giving us the news feed WE want, at least to an extent.
If you haven’t been on Facebook in the past couple days or even the past 36 hours, then you might be surprised at what Facebook just did. Now, users have the ability to control what they see on their feed and even have the ability to see the most recent posts at the top of their feed.
Facebook’s feed hasn’t been chronological in the way it was when it came out. Nor will it be exactly that again. However, now you can control what types of content you see and from who you see it, by adjusting the preferences in your settings.
How do we know this proves our stance even more on genuine content (being human too) over the tricks? Because this change is essentially why we said it or it emphasizes it. With algorithms changing, the tips and tricks have to change as well. And that isn’t sustainable long-term if you always need to change your strategy in order to succeed. It’s time consuming.
So instead, sustainability being key, and if the tips and tricks which change are not sustainable, then what is? Well, the tips and tricks are aimed at gaining engagement or awareness to your brand, gaining connections around your brand. Therefore, the connections are what is sustainable, while gaining and maintaining them is the goal. How do you create and maintain those connections? By always delivering content that has immense value. This is more important as of today than, literally, yesterday.
With this change, it means that the past tips and tricks won’t matter as much because people will be setting the preferences to see the content they want. Therefore, you must gain someone’s attention and keep it, in order for them to WANT to interact with it and see it. You have to offer them so much value that they want to keep you in their feed. This is why branding is so important, it’s the ultimate sales and marketing strategy. In order to be sustainable with your content in the way we are talking about is in the way of branding. It’s the voice you give your brand because then it will decide the content you post and from that, who will view and interact with it. Not if it’s the cheapest product among the competition.
In the past, a post that may not have offered too much value may have gotten seen and even interacted with. This is easy to explain why. In the algorithm, we did not have the choice of content to see. So, if something offered a little more value than the rest of the content in our non-voluntary feed, then we might interact with it because it’s marginal. It’s better than what is used to being seen, but it does not mean that it was actually good.
What is going to tell if it is actually good is if the people CHOOSE to see your content still, it won’t be marginal.
An approach in which your sole focus is on connecting with your audience or new audiences is going to make you win, long-term, because people will appreciate that more than the, as we stated in the last article, “shove it down your throat” sales-type posts. People can tell if you’re being authentic. The best marketing strategy is connections. How do we know?
Well, it’s the same reason reviews are so important, referrals are more innately trusted than a cold call, or why if someone recommends a Netflix show you’re likely to take a look at it rather than if you stumbled upon it yourself: because there is proof from other people, people they are connected with and trust.
When you gain trust, you gain loyalty.
And when you have loyalty, not only is someone more likely to buy from you again and refer you, they likely won’t go somewhere else for the same thing, because they believe in YOUR brand and message.
The Creative Blog 
Leave a comment