While many real estate agents panicked over the mobile updates brought about by Google’s Mobilegeddon, another less-expected algorithm update may have been overlooked, and its changes may be even more significant. With over 728 million daily users, Facebook is still the top way to create networking opportunities in the world of real estate. However, on April 21st, Facebook made some significant changes to its algorithm that will affect Facebook Pages and the way businesses strategize for social media.
In order to be more user-friendly, Facebook updated their algorithms after receiving feedback from their users. According to Facebook, users reported that they want the “right mix of updates from friends and public figures, publishers, businesses and community organizations.” Facebook’s goal in this update is to make news feeds more interactive, meaning that users are looking for content they can connect with and share. While this doesn’t mean that your pages’ content will be disappearing from followers’ news feeds, it does mean that businesses will need to produce content that users care about.
Here are the three most recent Facebook algorithm changes that may affect your page.
1. Multiple posts from the same source
Before this new change, Facebook had rules set in place so multiple posts from the same friend or page would be pushed further down your news feed. This was done to prevent a single person or business from monopolizing your feed. However, now Facebook is relaxing this rule. Users’ feeds will now be populated with posts from pages or friends that they have more interaction with. While we don’t recommend posting endlessly on your page in hopes that something will be seen by your fans, this could create opportunity for more of your posts to be seen by your individual followers as long as they are regularly engaging with your content. Work on developing content that your fan base will want to interact with in order to continue being shown in their feed.
2. Greater priority to content posted by friends
The second update attempts to ensure that users are seeing the content that they care about. Because of this, Facebook is giving higher priority to posts by friends of users. Even so, this doesn’t mean users will stop seeing all content from pages they like. As long as fans are interacting with posts from these pages, Facebook will assume that they are a priority to these fans. The goal of this change is to tailor a user’s news feed to fit that follower’s interests. The key here is to create timely, relevant, sharable content. If you’re already posting content that has good interaction with your fans, chances are they will keep seeing your posts in their new feeds.
3. Friends’ interaction will appear less frequently
The final (and possibly most significant) change is that posts about friends interacting with a page will not be displayed as frequently in one’s news feeds. Information about which pages friends like or comment on will be pushed further down the feed. What this means for pages is, if you were depending on fans’ interaction to reach a wider organic audience, you will need to rethink your strategy. However, this does not affect shared posts. Because of this, find ways to encourage your fans to share your content on their own page to increase your organic reach.
Overall, the most important take-away from these algorithm changes is that pages need content that fans and followers are interested in and can engage with. Learn more about your Facebook audience to determine the kind of posts you should be developing. Post the best content you have on your page to encourage fans to interact with you, and be sure that you’re also responding to their interaction.
If you’re concerned about producing relevant and sharable content or don’t have the time to develop a Facebook strategy, consider Homes.com Social. A comprehensive suite of social media tools, Homes.com Social is specifically designed for real estate professionals to help engage with more prospects, control the conversation and drive leads.
