Following Facebook’s recent News Feed algorithm announcement, social media marketers are probably grappling with the question of how to adapt, finding new ways to create visibility for the pages they manage.

Decluttering the Timeline

Like it or not, the new scoring process will rid timelines of the clutter we see today, much of which is consumed passively. There is concern that paid ads will increase as lazy marketers resort to paying for visibility, but let's focus on how we can genuinely add value by doing things differently.

Social media marketers can start by doing two simple things:

Be Seen First

In the future, consumers’ news feed preferences will be crucial in determining whether or not your page appears higher in their feeds. We need to find creative ways to make this happen, and one idea is to communicate proactively to existing followers. They will need to go to the settings menu, access their news feed preferences, and prioritize your page. Make it painless for them by using screenshots to explain the process in straightforward terms.

Start a Facebook Group

Facebook launched Groups for Pages this past year. Groups existed before that, but it was not possible to set them up using pages. See this as an opportunity to create and cultivate a community of like-minded people around your brand, another way to increase engagement. However, it is unclear how groups contribute to page visibility because, although pages administer these groups, there is no resulting activity on timelines.

Let's embrace the new norm, find ways to align our Facebook strategy with it, and expect positive outcomes. Zuckerberg would not have taken a $3 billion hit if he didn't think it's possible to make Facebook better.