What’s new? Read on to learn about changes to Facebook and Instagram in 2020. Look at your marketing strategy and be sure to work in some of these tips.

What’s new with Facebook?

• Facebook’s organic reach is said to be 1.5% to 2%. So, if you have 1000 fans, you will organically (naturally) reach 15 to 20 fans. I disagree with this percentage and I always have. Look at your insights. Insights prove that more than 1.5% of your followers see your posts. Most of my clients average a 25% organic reach. What about you?
• Facebook will prioritize posts with three lines of text and a smaller image that doesn’t require viewers to click for more info. This results in a reduced organic reach due to reduced real estate on posts.
• Ads will appear at the top. Posts will appear below them.
• Facebook will prioritize posts with meaningful interactions, comments and shares.
• Reactions (hearts, laughter, sad face, etc.) are more valuable than a simple “like”.
• The more reactions, comments and shares on a post there are, the more people who will see it.
• Facebook also wants to see engagement on shared content so comment on shares.

Action steps for driving business

• Create ads with meaningful content. Avoid boosting posts that only see low conversion rates and don’t target users who are likely to purchase.
• Have a sales funnel in place; keep jogging their memory. Funnels focus on users with means and motivation to purchase.
• Use laser targeting, lookalike and custom audiences.
• Test expansion targeting.
• Do a value offer; for example, a discount on a service.
• Build your email list with LeadPages.com.
• Use FB groups to motivate your “tribe”. Be aware that FB will flag and remove groups that don’t adhere to community standards.
• Avoid call-to-action phrases that are overly promotional.
• Avoid posts that push people to enter promos, giveaways, contests.
• Avoid posts that link to outbound links. (This is ridiculous, right?)

What’s new with Instagram?

• The most important change to Instagram is the removal of the number of likes and video views from followers. Instagram wants viewers to focus on content rather than on the number of likes.
• The explore tab has reduced discoverability based on what it thinks you want to see.
• The new goal is to improve user experience by delivering the best posts to your newsfeed.
• Instagram stories now allow GIF’s, countdown timers, quizzes, polls and Q&A boxes.
• IG has added pre-designed “templates” to IG stories that leave empty spaces for you to fill out your answers.
• Track impressions from individual hashtags. Navigate to a recent post, tap “view insights” and scroll down to the impressions section.
• You can now remove followers who never engage on your posts and are referred to as “ghost followers”. These followers can bring down your engagement rate. Don’t download a third-party app, use a new IG feature and manually remove a follower.
• The IG bio/about section has shrunk so say what you need to in as few words as possible, otherwise, viewers have to click “more”.
• You can now share yours or someone else’s story to your Instagram story.
• IGTV is Instagram TV. This was released in 2018 and is basically an app within an app. With IGTV you can upload long videos ranging from on3 minute to three hours.

For additional information on what’s new with Facebook and Instagram, visit Alex Tooby

Jules Marie is a social media strategist and manager. Visit her at 33Words