Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: ilija Brajković, CEO, Kontra
I’ve been chatting to Petar Bogdan the other day, we were reminiscing about our agency (under the name Akcija)beginnings in 2011. The more the merrier was the social networks motto in those days. They were churning out the content as if there was no tomorrow, we advertised for clients 5 times a day. There were no issues with the reach, in fact I don’t even remember Facebook offering that info to the administrators. And look at now, it is all every body is talking about as if it’s the most important thing in the world. When you see the young community managers struggling with 3-5 placements a week, the only question I got for them is where you were in 2011.
You’ve probably heard the news, (and many of you may even have felt it) that Facebook is testing a new function – Explore Feed. Essentially what’s happening is that they will separate news feed into two; the main one where you’ll see only friends’ posts and additional Explore Feed where you can see the pages you follow and those you don’t but Facebook thinks you might be interested in. This has been trialed in 6 countries, and (un) fortunately Serbia was amongst them.
The colleagues in Serbia reported that the organic reach was down and the moaning and hate was up. Nothing new, you’d say. We’ve known for years/months that the organic reach is in decline, we’ve known for some time that number of friends on the page has less importance and we’ve known for a long time that it has become more expensive to advertise on Facebook. So, what’s the big deal?!?!
I met for the first time the director of the Agency Represent, Borislav who was on business in Zagreb. He gave me his views on the changes around us. We compared Represent vs Kontra, the agencies business models and the future of our business. I don’t need to tell you all about it; the column Borislav wrote for Media Marketing says it all.
We are all horrified that the internet destroyed publishing, and we are all pretending that we haven’t noticed that the same thing will happen to marketing as we know it.
So, there are changes afoot on Facebook itself, let’s see what’ll happen.
1. You’ll have to pay more for advertising
Facebook has ceased to be a channel for free communication and message sharing. Without an advertising budget our messages will not reach reach great many users. The option where a client pays the agency for a communication and then pays EUR100 a month for promoting adverts has gone (I hope boosting is not all you do). Without a serious budget there is no serious communication. Facebook has stopped being a cheap media.
2. The numbers of friends will become unimportant
The number of friends will be just a social proof, and will have no influence on the campaigns’ success. We suggest to all our new clients to try and reach several thousands friends but only as a social proof. After that you need to start engagement.
3. Small players will be in trouble
Small clients without a considerable budget will not reach the target audience. The agencies with clients like that who take EUR 300-500 a month without doubling the budget amount are wasting their time. And small clients haven’t got much money.
4. The media are in trouble
Most of the traffic on portals comes via Facebook. Diminished organic reach means less traffic. Less traffic, less advertising. The media will have to find new ways of attracting visitors.For example, a quality email list could be a good solution for the niche media. I don’t follow much, but I do like to receive Media Marketing’s newsletter every morning and glance through the news. I’m certain by investing more in email marketing media like that could reap the benefits. They just need to convert existing visitors into subscribers.
5. Content creation will become more important
Following on from what Borislav wrote, everything is leading towards creating higher quality content. The number of posts on Facebook has gone down, from3-5 a day to 2-5 a week. And they are trying to make the content more interesting. And of course you must advertise it. Alongside Facebook content,we’ll have to start thinking about content marketing, native and whatnot. And more and more video content.
6. We will use more personal profiles
The role of key people in the companies will be to use their profiles and channels to tell the company’s story. We as directors are the public face of the company and our profiles will play greater role. A good example is Ejub Kucuk, the director of MITA who started a series of his own video commentaries.
And just maybe they don’t introduce Explore Feed and organic reach goes up. Or maybe they’re in the woods.
