This is a very bold statement! Let's give it some context before you take a look at our Slideshare. This presentation has been informed by a recent study of Facebook pages under our management. During the month of December 2013, Facebook EMEA updated their algorithm resulting in significant changes to the Organic Reach of brand page posts. Previously, posts would organically reach 16-18% of the total fans of the page, however this has now dropped to between 1-6% (study of 13 brand Facebook pages that Huskies manage ranging from 4,000 fans to over 2 million fans). Cue – panic across all social media teams! Since then, brands everywhere have been wondering what can be done to counteract the drop in reach. Ogilvy Social (nice one guys – really informative) recently released a paper saying that organic reach for brands would eventually reach zero and that paid is an essential part of the mix. We believe that this may be true for many brands, and that a small amount of paid may be required for content to ‘catch fire’. However, we have seen from our own Huskies study that if brands adopt a new editorial approach to content creation - brands will not hit ZERO and may even begin to increase their organic reach.

1. HOW TO SAVE YOUR ORGANIC
REACH ON FACEBOOK
Andrew Murray, Social Media Manager

2. THE ALGORITHM CHANGE
During the month of December 2013, Facebook EMEA updated their algorithm
resulting in significant changes to the Organic Reach of brand page posts.
Previously, posts would organically reach 16-18% of the total fans of the page,
however this has now dropped to between 1-6% (study of 13 brand Facebook pages
that Huskies manage ranging from 4,000 fans to over 2 million fans).
Cue – panic across all social media teams!
16-18%
reach
1-6%
reach

3. ZERO?
Since then, brands everywhere have been wondering what can be done
to counteract the drop in reach. Ogilvy Social (nice one guys – really
informative) recently released a paper saying that organic reach for
brands would eventually reach zero and that paid is an essential part
of the mix.
We believe that this may be true for many brands, and that a small
amount of paid may be required for content to ‘catch fire’. However,
we have seen from our own Huskies study that if brands adopt a new
editorial approach to content creation - brands will not hit ZERO and
may even begin to increase their organic reach.

4. EDGERANK IS DEAD…
LONG LIVE ANOTHER ALGORITHM
You may have heard social media experts referring to the Edgerank
algorithm in recent years (we certainly did)! Edgerank has in fact been
dead for over 2 years... however there are currently over 100,000
factors that go into what a user sees on their News Feed when they log
into Facebook.
Facebook surveyed thousands of users, asking questions to help
determine what exactly makes a “high-quality” Facebook page post.
They then used this information to help make their News Feed
ranking algorithm better than ever.

5. WHAT DO FACEBOOK WANT?
Facebook want brands to invest more budget in paid ads, as well as adapt
their News Feed content to be more like Twitter – a news channel.
AND Facebook are being more blunt about the fact that marketers are going
to have to pay for reach... or produce DAMN good content.
+

6. WHAT DO FACEBOOK WANT?
Facebook has improved on its ability to detect high-quality content. In order to
best optimise for Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, marketers need to think of
social content the same way we think of content meant for Google and other
search engines. In other words, if you want your content to be visible to your
target audience, it must be timely, relevant, trustworthy and valuable.

7. WHAT DO FACEBOOK WANT?
“The goal of News Feed is to deliver the right content to the right people at
the right time, so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them.
Ideally, we want News Feed to show all the posts people want to see in the
order they want to read them.”
- Facebook, Dec 2013

8. WHAT FACEBOOK (AND PEOPLE) DON’T WANT

9. WHAT TO THINK ABOUT?
In our study, we noted that a brand we manage with over 400,000
fans saw a large dip in reach since the algorithm change. Their content
consisted solely of image-based content that was rarely topical. This
saw their reach fall from 10% in October to 5% at the end of February.
Their post reach dropped from 9% to 6% in the same period, with a
steady drop of 1% per month since November.
In contrast, we manage another Facebook page that has over 40,000
fans. This page posted on average 1.8 posts per day and their content
ranged from image-based posts to insight-driven topical content that
linked directly to their high-quality site. This brand page saw a 1%
INCREASE in their post’s organic reach and a 1% increase in their
page’s organic reach during the November to February period.

10. Make the majority of your content good enough, remarkable enough, to
be ‘liquid’ — to be shared outside your brand’s own circle of influence.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO?

11. But don’t forget to keep your content ‘linked’ to a strong sense of who
your brand is, and what you offer. Viral doesn’t do you any good if it’s
not linked to underlying strategies and goals.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO?

12. BUT PAID IS STILL IMPORTANT!
We know that not every brand post can be topical and highly-
shareworthy ALL the time (e.g. product shots, brand messaging,
certain social objects, etc.) – sometimes these posts just need to be
rolled out. They still have their place in a content strategy and they are
arguably as important as the ‘timely, relevant, trustworthy and
valuable’ content.
Paid is essential in boosting the reach of the above types of posts to
both current fans and a highly-targeted group of people (potential new
fans) via ads.
It is also important to note that through smart use of paid, you can use
the granularity of Facebook advertising to serve the right content, to
the right people at the right time.

13. WHO’S STILL ENJOYING SUCCESS?
Brands with content. Red Bull, BMW, Chanel... or even B2B brands.
Media companies too.
These brands use Facebook as a springboard to their own content,
generally hosted on their own websites.
Which brands will suffer the most? Brands with no content, mainly
CPG brands, which thought for a while that they could spam their
users with low-interest content as long as they were fans.
For these brands, party is over.
Facebook Ads is a very powerful platform perfectly suited for them.

14. TO DO RIGHT NOW
Brands need to adapt their content strategy/model to include more ‘quality’
posts per day, which feature a mix of text, link and photos. Posting once a day
without a ‘quality’ post (link to a relevant article/site, high-quality image that
will cause mass engagement, etc.) will not generate significant organic reach.
Posts ideally need to be:
• Topical/Newsworthy
• Quality content
• Linked out to a high-quality site
ALL posts should focus, focus, FOCUS on generating engagement.
OR
Posts need to be promoted (brand campaign specific posts). Using paid in an
intelligent way will only help bolster a successful Facebook strategy.

15. IN THE LONGER TERM…
Recently John Battelle put forward an interesting thought in a recent
post titled: "To be clear: do not build your brand house on land you
don't own." In it, he says, "Spend your money building something
worthy, then spend to drive people there. Your agencies have entire
creative and media departments that are good at just such practices."
We tend to agree. You see we believe in the simple truth that in life,
everything changes. The question we ask on a daily basis is: How do
we respond? Well, we believe it's important for brands to be agile and
adaptive if they are to maintain their relevance and the Facebook
debate illustrates this perfectly.

16. By Andrew Murray (Social Media Manager)
with special thanks to Brian Moloney (Social Media Analyst),
Aleesha Tully (Integrated Search Manager) and David
O’Rorke (Performance Media Manager)
www.inthecompanyofhuskies.com