A few years ago it was easier to build a following on Facebook and, in turn, reach that following. Since then more and more businesses, including fledgling musicians, have noticed the opportunities Facebook offers for reaching an audience in a fast-paced, easy, and free manner. The problem with this is that very few people can keep up with the amount of content being published and the constant stream of information, so in order to keep the platform from becoming redundant and losing their user base, Facebook knew they had to change something.
Enter the Facebook News Feed Algorithm, which is basically an intricate set of rules Facebook applies to posts, people, and pages posting content, allowing the system to quickly sort the good content from the bad. For example, earlier this year Facebook noticed there was a lot of clickbait and memes filling up the News Feed, which was devaluing their platform (if you like click bait and memes, head to Reddit or Buzzfeed).
Facebook also wanted more “news” posts in the feed, so they gave preference to media and publisher pages.
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All of these little tweaks lead to what the News Feed is today – a highly curated selection of posts by people and pages we, the Facebook user, dictate by simply interacting with those posts.
The most recent change to the News Feed Algorithm came via an official announcement in Facebook’s Newsroom blog entitled ‘News Feed FYI: Reducing Overly Promotional Page Posts in News feed’. The change has led to concern that Facebook is making it harder for indie bands to reach their fans so they can sell new albums or promote upcoming gigs.
“Our goal with News Feed has always been to show people the things they want to see.” – Facebook
So how do you reach your fans if you aren’t a publisher, or you aren’t genuinely funny, or whatever it is you think your shortcoming is?
You have to be engaging. Every time. All the time. You have to show your fans what they wanted to see at the point that they liked your page in the first place. If you’re not willing to pay respect online to the fans you’ve earned offline, then you probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.
“Social media is about being authentic and being social.”Social media is about being authentic and being social. It’s not meant to be a purely promotional entity, and if you want to use it for that, they have an advertising system in place for that. What it does offer is the chance to have a one-on-one relationship with your fans and see that relationship, and ongoing loyalty, flourish. Music is often used for expressing emotions, feelings, or lamenting about how certain things in the world are impacting on a musician’s life at the time, so it makes sense that those very human parts of music are carried through to an artist’s social media presence.
So, going back to the most recent changes and how, as a musician, you might be able to deal with them…
Facebook has stated that the number of ads in a user’s News Feed won’t go up, nor down. What will change, however, is the number of posts with overly promotional content. It seems obvious that Facebook is encouraging non-advertisers who want to push promotional content to actually pay for this service. Fair enough, right? That service is actually much cheaper than traditional advertising services and with a little creativity you can achieve major results. A good example is the story of this guy who recently spent under $3 on Facebook ads and successfully found and re-connected with a random guy he’d befriended in a club.
If you don’t have the dosh to spend on ads yourself or the purse strings of a backer, you just need to get a little creative. If you’re the kind of person who primarily uses your Facebook page to sell your product or promote your content, you’re going to have a bad time.
“If you’re not willing to pay respect online to the fans you’ve earned offline, then you probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.”Yes, Facebook is making it harder for bad content to make it into users’ News Feeds.
No, Facebook is not making it harder for indie bands without major label backing.
Show your fans what they want to see. Write good songs. Produce good content. Make it interesting and people will engage. Act like an online version of a door-to-door salesperson and Facebook will punish you accordingly.
Every single page has an equal chance of staying in their new fans’ News Feeds but they have to be engaging from the start. As soon as someone clicks ‘like’ on your page, they’re shown a series of recent posts from that page in the news feed. Unless they engage (like, comment, share, or even click) with at least one or two of those posts, the page is effectively buried in the news feed of that particular fan.
Be genuine, be relevant, and mix it up. Post about your gigs (geo-target them to the relevant audience so interstate or international fans aren’t annoyed by them) and intersperse that with glimpses into your “off duty” life or behind-the-scenes goings on.
Allday (rapper)
Peking Duk (dance music duo)
The Kite String Tangle (producer)
The changes are set to happen in January 2015 but you’d be wise to start thinking of ways to present your content in a creative and authentic way that isn’t pushy now.
Erin Lyall is the Marketing, Publicity, and Social Media Manager at Corner Presents, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @erinlyall. The original version of this article appeared on Erin’s website.
