Facebook to restrict reach of “promotional posts” – what now?

It’s no secret that Facebook has been clamping down on the number of people that see posts from Facebook pages for a while now in an effort to improve ‘user experience.’ However, according to a new blog from Facebook themselves, posts made by pages that are deemed to be overly ‘promotional’ might not be seen at all. From January 2015, Facebook now says that users will begin to see less of the following types of posts: · Posts that solely push people to purchase a product · Posts that push people to install an app · Posts that push people to enter competitions · Posts that reuse the exact same content that had been used in adverts Facebook decided to implement the changes after polling every-day users for their opinions on the content in their news-feed and these were the types of posts that were complained about the most. Because of this they now claim that as of January “pages that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall significantly over time.” So is this the end for businesses using Facebook to sell? Not at all. The key point to what Facebook said in their blog is that only organic reach will be affected. So using Facebook advertising tools for these kinds of posts is still a legitimate option. In-fact, advertising your posts is always the best method. As we discussed in a previous blog “A Beginners guide to Facebook ads” your target audience can be tracked down and your adverts shown to people who are outside of your existing fan base. You can also use it to increase your page likes, send traffic to a specific URL and even retarget people who have previously visited your website. Currently Facebook Pages average more than 750 million visitors a month, so despite these new changes there can be no doubt that Facebook remains an important place to do business. If you would like to know more about how Facebook advertising can help your business talk to David Clarke Managing Director at DBS, on 01522 811688, or freephone 0800 988 8366.