Facebook is constantly tweaking the formula that it uses to chose which posts appear where in a users News Feed. Lately, they’ve been more transparent about those changes, and that means that marketers get the news – bad and good – of these shifts before they happen. A new round of changes appear to be mostly bad news for musicians and music marketers.
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Facebook is, yet again, changing how it ranks the content that appears in users news feeds. Upgraded are personal posts form “the friends you care about,” such as photos, videos, status updates or links. They will appear higher up in News Feed so you are less likely to miss them.
Downgraded are most posts Page posts. Pages include the accounts of almost all musicians, labels, brands and businesses.
How will it affect your reach? Here’s what Facebook says:
“…we anticipate that this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages. The specific impact on your Page’s distribution and other metrics may vary depending on the composition of your audience. For example, if a lot of your referral traffic is the result of people sharing your content and their friends liking and commenting on it, there will be less of an impact than if the majority of your traffic comes directly through Page posts. We encourage Pages to post things that their audience are likely to share with their friends. “
The Solution?
Keep posting on Facebook, particularly content that you think fans will share. But double your efforts to grow your email list. It’s the only form of contact with your fans that you – and not some social network – really control.
“…we anticipate that this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages. The specific impact on your Page’s distribution and other metrics may vary depending on the composition of your audience. For example, if a lot of your referral traffic is the result of people sharing your content and their friends liking and commenting on it, there will be less of an impact than if the majority of your traffic comes directly through Page posts. We encourage Pages to post things that their audience are likely to share with their friends. “