What You Need to Know About Facebook's January 2015 Update

You might be asking yourself why Facebook is updating their policies, again. What are they updating this time around and how will it affect your business or brand? No need to worry, Facebook focuses their changes and policies to best benefit all of their users and allow you to give feedback on these policies. As of January 2015 Facebook has made some changes specifically to its policy regarding promotional content.

Who is Most Affected by the Most Recent Facebook Update?

The current changes will affect all pages and brands regardless of the amount of engagement they currently receive. For example, you can no longer promote content in the following ways. “Share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend's Timeline to get additional entries”, and "tag your friends in this post to enter" are not permitted. Facebook’s decision to make this change to its policy was based on results from a user survey they conducted.

In addition to the survey many Facebook users wanted to see more stories from friends and pages they cared about and less promotional content. You're probably asking yourself the question how do I now best reach out to my audience and get my message to show up in the news feed? One thing you can do is read the policy and better understand the changes being made and how they will benefit your business or brand page.

Here are some tips and suggestions to best help your business or brand page adapt to Facebook’s January 2015 Update

1. Avoid or Limit Promotional Content in Posts.

   While it is easy to think the focus of your Facebook page was to push promotional posts, this will no longer work. There is always another way and that is by simply drawing in your audience with entertaining and engaging content that will win your fans over with posts that will actually show up in their news feeds. Be sure to shift your promotional posts to your website.

2. Use Facebook Ads

   Even though Facebook has announced that they will be hiding more of the promotional posts, they have not made a change in policy to their Facebook Ads. With this being the case we recommend to set aside a budget in 2015 to use the paid service to help promote your business. These ads don’t have to be expensive and Facebook currently has clients who run daily ads and even those that do so on an ‘as needed’ basis.

3. Push Your Newsletter.

   Newsletters are one of the best marketing tools to be used by a business. Not only can you create beautiful promotional content, but you can also build a quality list of recipients and have access to detailed statistics. Newsletters actually show content to those who actually want to see it. 2015 is a great year to start a new promotional approach by creating a newsletter campaign.

Utah Social Media Marketing Services

We are passionate about getting social media right the first time. Whether you are looking for help to better understand the new Facebook algorithm change or how to best promote your business and brand page, we can help. Let us take care of your social media questions and tasks while you focus on running your business. Call 801-413-7734 to get started or find out more information about how Utah SEO Pros can help your business flourish on Facebook.

Facebook Announces Change for January 2015. (2014, November 17). Retrieved January 8, 2015, from http://oldtownmediainc.com/facebook-announces-change/

Coming January 2015: Facebook cracks down on promotional posts. (2014, November 20). Retrieved January 8, 2015, from http://www.brafton.com/news/coming-january-2015-facebook-cracks-promotional-posts

An Update to News Feed: What it Means for Businesses. (n.d.). Retrieved January 9, 2015, from https://www.facebook.com/business/news/update-to-facebook-news-feed

Updating Our Terms and Policies: Helping You Understand How Facebook Works and How to Control Your Information. (n.d.). Retrieved January 9, 2015, from https://www.facebook.com/about/terms-updates

Facebook logo. (n.d.). Retrieved January 9, 2015, from https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php#promotionsguidelines