Facebook has major changes in stall for us, with a shift towards more family and friend focused content sharing. Moving away from our Facebook feeds being filled with sponsored posts by brands and businesses.
"We've gotten feedback from our community that public content - posts from businesses, brands and media - is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to
connect more with each other," wrote Mr Zuckerberg.
What does this mean for your Facebook feed? It means our personal news feeds on Facebook will favour more meaningful and relevant content, according to our online behaviour.
Over the past few months all account folders on Instagram have experienced lowering reach and engagement across the board, this is the result of the ever-changing Instagram algorithm and updates. Brands and influencers will have to constantly be boosting their content for the algorithm in order to get high impressions and engagement.
What does this mean for your Instagram Posts? It means your personal posts on Instagram will have less likes and comments as the organic reach on this platform decreases.
Now as a business, what does this all mean for you and your business page?
1. Increasing popularity of Instagram and Instagram Stories
2018 will be the year of the more and more content creating and content sharing, thanks to Instagram, Instagram Stories and Instagram Stories Adverting.
This year will also be the year of optimizing (boosting) your posts on Instagram to reach a larger audience. 2018 will be about performance via paid advertising to increase your reach on Instagram;
a. Boosting Instagram posts will become normal for everyone in 2018
b. Your Instagram Profile will come your new home page in 2018 - your Instagram feed will become just as important as the home page on your website. More and more people are starting to search brands by their Instagram feed instead of Google.
c. Instagram Stories Ads will be the ‘MUST DO’ method for 2018
d. Micro-Influencer Marketing will be the even more important in 2018 with a shift in Facebook’s News Feed. Micro-Influencer Marketing is officially the next big thing, and brands are already finding success in working with Instagram accounts that have smaller, but more engaged followings.
e. Instagram Stories tool went live one year ago and already Instagram Stories have over 200 million people using this function each month, which is a massive over 50 million more than those who use Snapchat! This means at this rate, nearly half of all Instagram users will be using Stories by the end of 2018. Making Instagram stories more important an ever for brands and businesses on a daily basis.
Why? Stories provide a real-time insight into the world of that Instagrammer, the content is less curated and only lasts for 24hours. For a business or brand, Stories are a great way to show BTS snapshots into the running of the business, the staff members, the factories etc, this businesses are inviting the social audience into unreachable zones. Paid for adverting via Instagram Stories has been slowly tested by brands and businesses over the last year, with a growing success rate.
2. Continued investment in Influencer marketing
With the shift in the Facebook News Feed, Influencer Marketing is more important than ever! Over 90% of marketers who employ an influencer marketing strategy believe it is successful. With leading companies like North Face, Hubspot and Rolex use social media influencers marketing as a component of their overall marketing strategies to connect with new audiences and improve engagement with existing audiences.
5. Increasing brand participation in messaging platforms
Facebook has been slowly rolling in message advertising. With over 2.5 billion people use messaging platforms globally, this space has been identified as a space to connect with brands audience members.
Click-to-WhatsApp messaging buttons in Facebook Ads
Pop advertising in Facebook messenger
Chatbots and instant reply messenger
Plus Messenger Broadcast is being tested
To date brands have primarily been focused on in news feed positioning, however with the new Facebook algorithm, 2018 brands will need to expand and invest in the new in message advertising features.
3. NEW TO THE SPACE: Digital hangouts
Facebook has been reportedly investing in ways to create a digital hangout, similar to the Houseparty video hangout platform used by over 1 million people each day. It is expected that the role out of the video hangout will be just as successful as Stories via Instagram.
2018 is shaping up to be a major year for Instagram, with Instagram becoming the major platform for brands and businesses to engage and communicate with their audience, especially Instagram Stories!
We will be rethinking and reworking the distribution strategy for both platforms as these changes take effect in the coming weeks.
LETS GET SOCIAL.
ARTICLE SOURCES:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42657621
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/11/facebook-news-feed-algorithm-overhaul-mark-zuckerberg
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/12/technology/facebook-news-feed-change/index.html
http://www.adnews.com.au/new-instagram-feature-receives-backlash
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/300813
http://strategic-marketing-group.com/2018-instagram-influencer-trends-can-help-business-drive-engagement/?doing_wp_cron=1515974766.6027889251708984375000