Social media is relatively new, but it has proven to be a vital element in the customer-engagement equation for businesses. With the constant changes taking place on social channels, it is important for companies to understand how to best use these valuable tools for gaining attention from target audiences. In particular, recent changes on Facebook and LinkedIn will certainly begin affecting how journalists, marketers and PR professionals use social channels.
Facebook has been undergoing some significant changes that will affect how companies can reach their audiences. Previously, companies could create a Page, essentially a company or brand Facebook profile, and push content to their audiences through this medium. However, the ease and low cost of this source may soon not be as effective as it once was.
According to Ad Week, Facebook has recently been reworking its news feed algorithm, making it more challenging for companies to get impressions from their content, no matter how clever they may be. An anonymous source from Valleywag claimed that Facebook is reducing the organic reach of Pages to 1 or 2 percent. This move will make it continually more challenging for companies to reach their audiences through Facebook posts, eventually forcing companies to pay for ads on Facebook instead.
A Facebook spokesperson responded to this change on CNET: “We have not given a specific reach number that Pages should expect to see because organic reach will vary by Page and by post. Like many mediums, if businesses want to make sure that people see their content, the best strategy is, and always has been, paid advertising,” the spokesperson said.
While that might make it more difficult or costly to reach audiences, Facebook recently announced a new tool that will be valuable for journalists, which PR professionals should note as well. FB Newswire is a public page of real-time news that will curate original pictures, videos and status updates on the latest news, weather, entertainment and more. According to the Wall Street Journal, Storyful, a social news-verification company, will monitor FB Newswire. Each photo, video or status update on the page will link back to the user’s personal Facebook page, giving journalists the opportunity to contact the user for the information around the post. PR professionals will need to take note of the changing ways journalists get their news leads and possibly re-strategize depending on how successful FB Newswire is.
LinkedIn recently announced another change in the social media world. In just a few years, LinkedIn has made a variety of changes to the way the site aggregates news and then pushes it to audiences. An article from the Huffington Post highlights LinkedIn’s recent timeline of change. In 2011, LinkedIn introduced LinkedIn Today, a news aggregator. The following year LinkedIn created LinkedIn Influencer, which is a blogging platform for thought leaders and experts selected by LinkedIn.
LinkedIn recently announced LinkedIn Publishing, giving each user the opportunity to create content, a privilege previously reserved for the select 150 leaders and experts. LinkedIn Publishing is an exciting new tool that enables companies to potentially increase brand awareness. Essentially, it will give users access to share their blog posts to the LinkedIn community. LinkedIn Publishing will give PR professionals another outlet to assist clients with reaching their target audiences.
Social media is still relatively new, but even so, is constantly changing. Social channels must encourage community involvement (as has real-time news) in order to keep the interest of users, journalists, marketers and PR professionals alike. FB Newswire and LinkedIn Publishing have the potential to be two useful sources, and it will be intriguing to see how these social media sites affect the PR industry.