When it comes to taking on client needs social media, like the search engines, is constantly changing and evolving. These changes sometimes we love and sometimes we hate. This is one that we're kind of in the gray area. What does this mean for you on building engagement and brand awareness for your business? Glad you asked! There's a ton that this will do to actually help you grow your business, you will be able to build your brand awareness through your website and showcase your awesome company culture through the use of Facebook groups.
Facebook today in an article with the Verge (click here for the Verge story on Facebook is redesigning its core app around the two parts people actually like to use) has stated they are putting less emphasis on the Facebook newsfeed for businesses and more toward events and groups. This change many will be panicking and wondering where Facebook is headed.I laugh when I heard this from Kyle as we had been talking about Facebook Groups since November of last year for our clients. Since then we've been actively looking at groups on how to best take advantage of it. Irony shows it came out today when tomorrow we were going to publically talk about it. So thanks Facebook!
With this change groups and events will have a higher place of relevance according to the Verge. According to Facebook the reason is to simplify and put emphasis on individual relationships rather than businesses. Right now this change is coming more quickly to the mobile users as that is the largest usage of Facebook and then rolling out to desktop, tablet, and laptop users.
The push for events makes perfect sense to us. Not only does it get you off of Facebook (for a while -- until you start posting your stories) but gets you out socializing and talking with your friends and family.
All of this takes in Mark Zuckerberg's pledge in March for a more "privacy-focused communications platform." This entails merging and more emphasis on messaging, photo-sharing, and unified communications. This is further indication of Facebook taking the best parts of Snapchat, Tik Tok, Twitch, Reddit, and other social media platforms.
This change will make many stock holders unhappy, as well as many social media management companies, but to us it puts more on the marketing for our clients making it easier for us to help them grow.
Creating a group just to have a group is not the solution. Groups are not what every business needs and not every business should create a group to create a group. This would go the way of having a social media account just to have a social media account. With these changes you need to sit down, collaborate, and strategize on bringing brand awareness to your company as well as growing your overall marketing awareness. What all of this should say to everyone is to put less love and trust on Facebook and social media as a whole and stick to the tried and true basics of a website,search engine optimization, and paid ads to increase and grow your bottom line.
These changes, like everything in life, should be taken in a logical manner that focuses on the strengths and overall growth of your company. Don't panic and don't let others scare you. Change is always around the corner and it is how you accept these changes and are agile that defines how your business will grow.