Facebook Ad Dollars More Important Than Ever

ccink_facebookEver since becoming a publicly traded company (and thus being more focused on the bottom line) Facebook has been pushing brands more and more toward what is now becoming inevitable — you have to spend at least a little advertising money to get your message to your audience on the social media giant.

Facebook announced today more changes to the formula it uses to create its news feed.  The news feed is the first thing you see when you log into the site, and includes a mix of updates from your friends, paid advertising, and content from pages and groups that you’ve “liked.”  Facebook announced today that going forward, it will include less of that last item and more of the first item.

What does this mean for your organization’s page on Facebook?  A lot.  You’ve surely noticed that when you post an item, only a small percentage of your “likers” actually see it.  Its visibility, of course, will increase if your audience is liking, commenting and sharing on that item, but it’s absolutely harder to cut through the clutter than it used to be, and now Facebook says it’s going to be harder.

In the end, the solution is to use targeted advertising dollars.  When you “boost” a post on Facebook, the site shows it to more people.  And, the good news is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to get more eyeballs.  There’s no need to boost every post on your page, either.  Boosting your best content will go a long way toward making sure you keep people interested.