Ready or not, here they come: more changes to Facebook and Instagram, that is!
Change can be hard, overwhelming and frustrating.
But as a business owner, you can re-envision change as new opportunity to grow, learn and adapt to gain the advantage over your competitors.
Adaptability isn’t embraced by everyone. That’s why those who are most willing to adapt are most likely to survive and thrive!
So, what new “opportunities” await you now by adapting to Facebook and Instagram’s upcoming changes?
In March, Mark Zuckerberg released a series of announcements about the future of Facebook’s family of companies, which include Facebook and Instagram.
He highlighted six key areas:
- Private Interactions
- Encryption
- Reducing Permanence
- Safety
- Interoperability
- Secure Data Storage
While the announcements were vague and the areas listed above focus mainly on user experience, there are several key takeaways for business owners who use these proprietary platforms to put the word out about their products and/or services.
Businesses need to be prepared for Facebook to re-envision its trademark Newsfeed style. Zuckerberg’s March announcement made it clear that Facebook will be transforming from “a boisterous global town square into an intimate living room,” according to the Washington Post.
What does this mean for small businesses like yours and mine?
It means we need to focus now, more than ever, on building engaging, meaningful relationships with our followers on Facebook and Instagram.
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like organic posts from businesses, brands and media. And the public content you do see will be held to the same standard to encourage meaningful interactions,” Zuckerberg said. “Pages creating posts that people generally don’t interact or comment on will see the biggest decreases in Reach.”
So, what can you do to prepare for the coming changes?
Action Steps
- Continue to build content by focusing on meaningful interactions. Content that encourages conversation, reactions and sharing is what Zuckerberg is prizing these days. Remember to share content that sheds positive light on the user who shares it (humor, inspiration, news not everyone knows yet, etc.).
- Safeguard your business by building an email list. If you haven’t figured this out already, we are BIG believers in the importance of maintaining an email list. Doing this will help ensure that no matter what changes come our way in the future, we’ll always have a reliable channel that lets us communicate directly with our existing and potential customers.
- Sign up for one of our free training sessions for in-depth information on Zuckerberg’s announcements and exactly how you can begin to use the upcoming changes to rise above your competitors and entice Facebook and Instagram users away from their Newsfeeds and into your business.
Here’s a sneak peak of a few of the topics we will cover in the webinar:- The one UNBELIEVABLE feature that will be going away on Instagram in the coming weeks.
- New requirements for Facebook Group Admins and Moderators.
- Five changes for Facebook Business Pages that will impact both visibility and engagement.
- The easy breezy five-step strategy that will allow you to leverage Faceobok and Instagram like never before. (This strategy has proven to help business owners comply with Facebook’s most recent rules changes, and overcome the impact of the latest algorithm updates.)
- Details on those changes to the Facebook and Instagram algorithms, that will impact your visibility. These changes impact both Facebook and Instagram business accounts AND Facebook Groups.