Facebook Changes That Affect Business | 2 Secrets to Beating These Changes At No Cost

If you are a wedding or special event business, you know how social media is an invaluable part of your marketing and sales tactics.  If you are a small wedding or special event business (or any small business), knowing how to leverage the most economical means of marketing to give you the most value for your money and time is essential to survival.  Proper business social media demands engagement from brands with their followers.  Followers (potential customers) make purchase decisions based on their interactions and followings with a brand for awhile before they decide to buy. 

Here's how Facebook business public pages used to work.  Fans "liked" your page.  By doing this, anything you as a business typed into your status update would automatically show in your fan's personal news feed.  That was the whole purpose.  After all, they "liked" your business and wanted to know more about you or learn from you.  If you really wanted more than just your fan base to see your statuses or promote your page and business more, you could pay to "boost" a post and it would be pushed to either a dedicated pre-determined (by you) audience or increased in frequency in your current fanbase plus their friends.

In January 2015, Facebook changed.  They no longer show your business status updates to your fans unless you pay.  Facebook now "serves" or "shows" your posts/status updates to approximately 2% of your total fan base.  While you may have earned fans and followers the hard, old-fashioned way or even paid for some of them and they are rightfully yours to post away to in theory (and under the old Facebook Way), now Facebook has changed, indicating that they know what's best for your followers and industry and will only post (serve) your status updates to those they think will find it of interest.  Curiously, they have no problem posting to your fan base, however, if you pay them.

Facebook explained this change in January , 2015 by releasing a nice little PR note which essentially masks what they are doing and tries to make it look like they are helping all Facebook members, when in fact, it is simply about them making more money.  As a small wedding business, I have invested hundreds - maybe thousands of dollars - in Facebook ads and boosts over the years.  I have enjoyed the exposure it gave me for the particular intent of the boosted post or ad.  I will say, however, that many new "likes" were questionable - as if Facebook has an underground in a third-world country and pays people with names like "Sham-ee-quah" from Bangladesh - individuals not even remotely associated with my industry at all- to "like" my page to make me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something.  Ultimately, in some ways, I feel many aspects of Facebook advertising is all a ruse.  And now, with the new 2015 changes, I'm almost positive it is.

If you have noticed that you are getting fewer and fewer "likes" from your fans, fewer comments and engagements and ultimately that your post has been "served" to a ridiculously low amount of followers in ratio to your total fan base, you are not alone.  The only ways to get your fans to see your posts now is to pay to boost each post  OR you can do the following (which each require work on your fan's side, but it is the only way to continue to get your marketing across to your fan base at no cost):

1)  Ask your fan base to regularly "like" and "comment" on your posts.  This increases the algorithms on Facebook and sends the message that your posts are of interest to more than two people and they will start featuring your posts in your fan's newsfeeds more often.  Facebook regularly moves status updates on business pages to almost a non-existent status when they are not receiving regular activity and engagement from fans.  They read this as fans not being interested, when in fact, they are the reason fans are not interested because they are not featuring status updates in fan's newsfeeds like they used to.

2)  Ask your fan base to go to your home Facebook business page and under "liked" at the top, click the drop down menu and make sure that not just the "Follow" button is checked, but "Get Notifications" is also checked.  This ensures that ANY time you post a status update or photo, the fans who have clicked on this "Get Notifications" will receive all your posts (see image below)

Under "Liked" button, Fans need to click on drop down & make sure "Get Notifications" is clicked as well as "Following"

Is there a way to get your status updates in front of fans without asking them to do anything on their end?  Yes- you can pay to boost your posts now.  While there may be some times it's necessary, small businesses generally can't afford to pay to boost every single status update they do, and yet, they have to stay current and keep generating regular status updates.  It can and will get very expensive if you have to pay to make sure every status update gets in front of your fans.

Feel awkward about asking your fans to do anything?  If it's any consolation, major international brands have also done a similar "ask" of their fans for this very reason.  And these brands invest heavily in advertising dollars with Facebook.  The reality is , Facebook is looking for another way to make more money.  But if your fans are willing, you can ask them to be a part of the process of ensuring that they don't miss a single thing from you.  Sample verbiage may include something like,

 "Dear Fans of (insert name of business Facebook page here); With the 2015 Facebook changes, you may notice that you are seeing fewer of our status updates in your feed. In order to make sure you continue to receive information and updates from us, please consider one (or both of the following):

1) Please regularly "like" and comment on our status updates and posts to keep our alogrithms strong with Facebook and thereby in front of our fans on a regular basis   

and/or

2)  Please go to our page and under "Liked" in the drop down menu, make sure both "Following" and "Get Notifications" are check-marked.

This will help ensure you don't miss valuable and fun updates from our business."

Whether you are a small or large business, watching your bottomline in marketing and advertising pertains to everyone and with Facebook's new changes, being empowered with your choices so you make the decision about what is best for you is what it's all about.

One final option we are seeing many businesses do is to ask fans to actually leave Facebook and follow them on another social medium such as Twitter or Instagram.  This is also an option, but we don't recommend abandoning Facebook 100%, as it is still a resource used by potential clients and you need to look like you are still open for business and not an abandoned ghost town "has been" (example: potential client goes to your Facebook business page, but you haven't posted anything in months - it can convey that you've gone out of business).  But certainly, Facebook posts can be less in quantity and you can increase more posts in other social mediums as you get your fans to switch over.

We are happy to answer any questions on the above article to help you with your small business at no charge and no obligation.  We feel passionately about this 2015 Facebook change as a small business and welcome the opportunity to help others in our special event business community. Please feel free to contact us.

Check us out on Facebook (per the article above, don't just "like" us, click "Get Notifications", too!) ,
Twitter and Instagram

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Engaging Inspiration provides sparkling marketing, training and social media for the luxury hospitality and wedding professional, designed to engage and inspire. Founded by Santa Barbara Wine Country Weddings & Events CEO, Kerry Lee Dickey, you can learn more about us here.