Even after all of this time, Facebook has still stayed at the top of social media marketing. Even though the popularity of the platform has gained in the last few years as its audience has grown older, Meta has managed to mitigate this by including platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp under its umbrella.
All of this means that there were, and will be a lot of changes to the algorithm so that every user on the combined platform has a good experience. For advertisers like us, that means that there is a lot to learn and adapt to if you want to maintain profitability with your campaigns or improve them further.
Understanding these changes and adapting strategies accordingly is crucial for sustaining and growing your business on this platform. Luckily for you, we did some research on this topic, and here is what you need to know about the algo, and how it's changing to best adapt to it!
The Biggest Changes So Far
If you want to know where the future is going, you need to know the past. Facebook, or should we say Meta, has always made big changes to their algorithm, and for better or worse, they all influenced the current one. So, here are some of the biggest changes that we experienced so far and how they impacted the platform.
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Emphasis on Meaningful Interactions (2018)
In 2018, Facebook announced a major overhaul aimed at prioritizing content from friends, family, and groups over public content from businesses, brands, and media. This change was intended to encourage more meaningful interactions between users.
While users celebrated that they got to see what the people they were interested in had to post and share, advertisers were less happy about it. It ruined a lot of organic reach that you could have as a business and it all boiled down to paid advertising. Advertisers suddenly couldn't rely on getting any significant reach without paying for it, and this decision made Meta billions in revenue since now reach was paid.
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Quality and Authenticity of Content (2019)
Since advertisers had to pay to get any reach at all, they decided that a great way of getting the most bang for your buck is to clickbait everything. This soon spiraled out of control and Facebook had to step in and demote content that was clickbait, sensationalist, or misleading, and prioritize content that users found valuable and authentic.
For advertisers, this meant that they needed to adjust the way they were advertising and focus more on quality content that had some value to the users.
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Increased Transparency and User Control (2020)
In response to growing concerns over privacy and misinformation, Facebook introduced features that allowed users more control over their News Feed, including the ability to see fewer political ads and more transparency around who is running ads and why.
Advertisers had to be more transparent about their ads, leading to additional compliance requirements. With users able to control the types of ads they see, targeting became more challenging, necessitating more precise audience segmentation and messaging.
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Changes Due to COVID-19 (2020)
The pandemic led to shifts in user behavior and subsequently changes in the algorithm. Facebook prioritized posts that provided critical information related to COVID-19. It also caused a scare for the company and they started banning people if they had content that was even related to the pandemic. This changed a lot of things for advertisers, but on the other hand, out of a sudden, they had a huge audience base of people that are stuck at home scrolling social media.
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Introduction of Facebook Reels and Stories (2021)
TikTok has shown the industry that short-form content is the future, and with that Facebook started making some huge changes of their own. They started focusing more of their time and money on improving Facebook/Instagram Reels and Stories, and they made a huge push for them.
Out of a sudden, advertisers were faced with the change that videos would perform way better when targeting reels and stories, and it changed the meta completely. Previously most of the ads were simple image banners, but now with the power of video, a lot of advertisers switched to that.
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Enhanced AI and Machine Learning (2022)
Of course, as with anything, AI started changing a lot of things once it was introduced to the public. Facebook is still trying to detect AI content and limit it compared to human-made content, as it considers AI stuff to be of lesser quality and bad for its platform in general.
Adapting to Algorithm Changes
Now that you know what the biggest changes were in the last few years it's important to learn how to adapt to changes. Sadly we don't have a time machine to know how the platform will develop, but as always there are a couple of things we can do to make the likelihood of success a lot higher!
1. Understanding the Facebook Algorithm
To get a feeling for the algorithm, you need to first understand that Meta is here to make money. They make money by selling ad spots, and these ad spots need to be seen by users to make them work. Users won't see these ads if they are not interested in the platform and leave, so due to this, Meta needs to cater to them.
You can get a rough feeling of where things are going at the moment by just browsing Facebook yourself. See what ads you see commonly and see how many people interact with them and what they have to say. If there are a lot of scams of a particular type, then you know that that sort of thing will be completely banned soon.
2. Create Engaging Content
Content is at the heart of everything, so make sure you always give it your best shot when creating content. Do your research on what your audience likes and what they are interested in and try to deliver that sort of thing to them as much as you can.
You will see, with the right content, the right targeting, and a decent audience, you can quickly grow immensely on Facebook and reach people you would have never otherwise. And since any social platform values quality content, you can be sure that this strategy will never be troublesome or ineffective!
3. Utilize Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are gaining prominence as spaces for community building and engagement. Creating a group around your brand allows you to connect with your audience on a more personal level, fostering loyalty and sustained interaction.
You can advertise for that group and slowly gain members that then invite others and create a community that will interact with your products no matter what. Audiences such as these are great as they are already ready to convert and easy to reach.
The algo also almost doesn't even influence what they interact with, so you can be safe knowing that these people are your long-term customers no matter what!
4. Stories and Reels
Stories and Reels are designed to be quick, engaging, and often prioritized in user feeds. Regularly posting on these platforms can keep your brand at the forefront of your audience’s mind.
Since Meta is investing heavily in short-form video content, you can be sure that shorts will be popular and active for another few years for sure. That means you can adapt to them and harness their advertising power before others do!
5. Diversify Content Strategies
Since we never know what will be negatively or positively influenced in the future, a valid strategy is to do a little bit of everything. You can analyze different types of ads, intros, hooks, angles, clickbaity titles, and formats, and run them all at once to get a better overview of what is working and what isn’t.
6. Focus on Customer Retention
Use Facebook to build relationships with your current customers through exclusive content, special offers, and personalized interactions. This will help you retain a good audience base even if there is a huge change in the algorithm that would impact you and your business. Also, it is always cheaper to retarget someone than it is to get them to convert in the first place!
Conclusion
Facebook as any other social media platform is always changing. It's something they have to do to stay relevant, interesting, and on good terms with their user base.
You, as an advertiser, need to try adapting to any changes and try to catch most of them proactively so that they don't disrupt your work. All of this is much harder to do than say, but with some common sense, a bit of foresight, and some good old-fashioned testing, you can get the hang of it in no time!
What was the biggest algorithm change you faced? Share your experience with us in the comments below!
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