Running ad campaigns on Facebook is trickier now with the algorithm changes in its News Feed. Combine this with posts from family, friends, acquaintances, and competing brands and you have a more cluttered News Feed that can steal your target audience’s attention off your ads.
In this article, we will share with you 4 tips on how to outsmart Facebook’s algorithm and make your ads get more engagement from target users.
1. Invest in Producing Video Content
People’s attention span is getting shorter by the day.
When producing video content, make sure the first 3 seconds are attention-grabbing as this is the most crucial. It is also a best practice to include snippets on the first 3 seconds of the video so users can read them. The rationale behind this is users watch 85% of Facebook videos with the sound muted.
Once you get users’ attention, the chances of having a higher cumulative impact on ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase intent increase with every passing second beyond the first 3 seconds of a Facebook video.
Videos also earn the highest engagement rate among various content formats but only represent 3% of total content on Facebook. This presents a perfect opportunity for your business to capitalize on less competition in terms of video content.
2. Incorporate Real Stories into Your Posts
Storytelling is a very powerful way to capture your audience’s attention and make it more compelling for them to share your content.
With video content, using Facebook Live videos is one way to capture real stories that happen as it is and let your audience share their reactions. According to statistics, viewers are 10 times more likely to comment on a Facebook Live video than a regular one.
Asking your customers to share their stories is also another way to improve engagement using storytelling. People are more inclined to empathize with real stories from real people than from any ad-placement storytelling with commercial models your team can conjure.
3. Encourage Comments among Users while Avoiding Tag and Comment Baits
Facebook has implemented stricter algorithms to punish clickbait taglines like these:
Instead of getting penalized for these types of posts, you might want to get more creative in driving discussion among users. One way you can do this is to conduct a simple poll like this one:
…or this one:
4. Improve Your Website
It’s a little-known fact that Facebook has started to downgrade the ranking of links to crappy websites.
To remain visible and keep pace with the changes in Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, make sure you improve the aesthetics and content of your website. Replace long words with simple icons for your call-to-action items. Make use of white space to declutter your website. Strategically position your content and use short sentences for headlines. All these can help improve the look and feel of your website.
Use these 4 tips together with boosting your Facebook posts to get more customer engagement and improve your News Feed ranking. Paid advertising on Facebook is very helpful in making your brand stand out from the competition. With the help of a reputable ad agency, you can also take advantage of their expertise to have a wider reach on the social media platform.
SOURCES:
Donnelly, G. (April 18, 2018). 75 Super-Useful Facebook Statistics for 2018. Retrieved from
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/11/07/facebook-statistics
Carter, R. (February 6, 2018). 9 Facebook Video Metrics Brands Need to Benchmark Right Now. Retrieved from
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-video-metrics/
Hall, K. (January 31, 2018). How to Outsmart Facebook’s News Feed (and Build a Better Brand). Retrieved from
https://www.inc.com/kindra-hall/how-to-outsmart-facebooks-news-fee
Barnhart, B. (March 21, 2018). 9 Effective Ways to Outsmart the Facebook Algorithm in 2018. Retrieved from
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-algorithm/
Constine, J. (May 10, 2017). Facebook downranks News Feed links to crappy sites smothered in ads. Retrieved from
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/10/facebook-fights-foot-fungus-ads/
Sears, A. (March 2, 2018). How To Outsmart Facebook’s Algorithm And Remain Visible. Retrieved from
http://yfsmagazine.com/2018/03/02/how-to-outsmart-facebooks-algorithm/
