The big news this week is all about Facebook’s announcement to dramatically change the newsfeed. Posts from friends and family will be taking priority while business and brand pages will be knocked lower and decrease in their reach. Read more below…
More updates for Google as Local continues to play a bigger role in search as well.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook announced that they were considering removing pages from the newsfeed late last year, and last week confirmed that this update would be taking place.
From Mark Zuckerberg,
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
OK, everyone – freak out!!!
No, not really.
What it means: Facebook will be prioritizing personal posts over business pages’. It will also be prioritizing posts that people engage with. This has been part of the algorithm for a while, but it sounds like now it will be more strict on what is shown at all.
Fear not! The Facebook Business page is NOT dead.
What you can do:
- Ensure that your page is verified
- Update your page –
Update your logo and your cover photo
Are your address and phone number correct?
Are all of the tabs on your page working?
- Create more videos! Video is still playing well and sees higher engagement than any other type of content on Facebook.
- Be genuine and engage with your audience. Remember, Facebook is first and foremost a social network. Don’t try to ‘game’ the system. Be real when representing your company online.
More to come on this development as we see the update being rolled out. Stay tuned!
In an effort to get more attention on local news and events, Facebook is testing a local news feature on its mobile app.
Mobile users in the following cities are seeing this update first: Olympia, WA, Billings, MT, Binghamton, NY, Little Rock, AK, New Orleans, LA, and Peoria, IL.
Users may be alerted to the new local news section or be able to access this feature via the menu.
GOOGLE LOCAL
On the navigation to the left, select photos then at the top, select videos.
This is a really interesting article – A new patient that Google applied for may indicate that they will decrease the importance of reviews if the reviewer stops visiting a place. We shall see what happens here, but the article was an interesting peek into how Google uses all data it can, and how much it is tracking each user.
GOOGLE
Google is rolling out a (much-needed) update to the search console. We don’t have it yet on our end, but are really looking forward to seeing the changes!
