Ah, the good old days; we often long for their simplicity, and yet time and so-called “progress” march on. In Facebook’s glory days, we didn’t worry about fake news, algorithms, or ads. Instead, it was all about making friends, catching up, and sharing.

Then businesses wanted to use Facebook to connect with consumers, so they joined the platform and started posting organic content. Facebook saw a revenue opportunity, so they offered companies the ability to post ads and target the consumers most receptive to their services. Suddenly businesses could reach people even more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Most recently, in early 2018, Facebook announced an overhaul of its news feed that favors content from friends over posts by companies, as well as a plan to feature more local news.For companies, this resulted in their organic reach plummeting, meaning that non-paid content was no longer showing up in their followers’ feeds.

For many years, the content that appeared most in news feeds was a mix of these three types:

• Content from friends
• Organic posts by businesses whose pages we followed
• Paid promoted content

But Facebook’s recent algorithm changes have de-emphasized organic content posted by companies from news feeds, making it a pay-to-play landscape for marketers and leaving many unsure of how to compete in the new era of Facebook.

Stake Your Claim

Free platforms like Facebook need advertising revenue to survive. Today, 79% of American internet users have a Facebook account. Of course it made sense to Facebook, based on their expansive reach, to monetize their business by offering other companies the opportunity to sell services to Facebook users. And, according to the 2018 Home Care Benchmarking Study, Facebook remains one of the top ten consumer marketing sources for home care companies, which means agencies should continue reaching out to potential clients there. So how can your home care agency play in Facebook’s new pay-based world?

• Give Your Organic Content a Fighting Chance: While organic reach, meaning the number of people who saw an unpaid post from your company in their news feed, has steadily declined for company pages, there are still a few ways to increase the chances of non-paid posts being seen, including:
  • Asking questions that are relevant to your consumers
  • Using eye-catching images or video, or going live
  • Keeping post content compelling yet straightforward
  • Using a consistent voice and posting useful content
  • Having fun and using humor appropriately
  • Measuring and reproducing what works
• Boost Great Content that Leads Back to Your Website: Facebook’s post boost feature is simple to use, and for a low fee (or whatever price you’re willing to pay) it helps your posts appear higher in your audience’s news feeds. How much you pay per boost depends on how many people you want to reach and the number of impressions you wish to garner. At corecubed, we recommend that our home care agency clients boost several posts per month, especially posts leading back to educational blogs on aging care housed on their own websites. This helps home care agencies reach a wider audience and drive more traffic back to their sites.
• Create Targeted Ads: Adding a new service to your home care agency? Want to promote an event or remind your audience about the benefits of home care? Facebook allows businesses to create paid ads for which you can customize the demographic, which allows your ads to show up in the news feeds of the people you want to target your marketing for home care services.

Provide Value

Today’s internet users are savvier than ever, and they want more control over what they see in their feeds. Recently, Facebook faced negative publicity surrounding their policies and procedures and have been forced to make some meaningful changes to give users the safer, more secure environment that they want. In light of this more user-focused approach, successful home care marketers should focus on providing followers with content that has value.When a company offers content with value, prospective clients listen and engage more. The way you create value is to understand your audience’s problems, needs, and questions and provide relevant and attainable solutions.

At corecubed, we understand how quickly online marketing for home care changes, and our dedicated  aging  care marketing experts possess the industry knowledge and digital marketing expertise to help your agency create a value-centered marketing strategy. Contact us to learn how to market to seniors online and off.