Effective this January, you may see less and less of any type of promotional posts in your News Feed, except of course those that were paid for.

Facebook is cracking down on posts that are overly promotional in an attempt to show people more of what they think you really want to see. Even if consumers have Liked a Company Page, that doesn't mean they want to be advertised to in an obvious way. While many consumers love sweepstakes and giveaways, from now on companies will have to pay to play on Facebook.

For businesses, this means changing the way they talk to consumers. Providing valuable content to consumers is more important now than ever. Whether it's local news and events, internal company pics and news, fun videos, infographics, blog posts, etc., consumers want to consume new and interesting content daily. And they're not going to share it unless they think their friends would really be interested.

In a nutshell - promoting yourself all the time doesn't work. It will be more important than ever to act like a publisher and provide content that is valuable to your target audience.

You may recall when Facebook banned Like-gating? Well, this is just another way they're hoping to ban promotions and sweepstakes with no real context and ones that are obviously just trying to get more Page or Post Likes.

If you don't already pay to play on Facebook? You should be prepared to see a decrease in your overall organic reach. If you have worked hard to earn attention through organic reach, you will now have to pay to get promotional exposure. If you've already promoted your page and boosted some posts - you're likely good.

So how will this affect your social media strategy? Are you prepared for this change?

Feel free to contact us to see how our copywriters and social media specialists can help you.