THE NEW FACEBOOK ALGORITHM, social media trends, and what I learned on Twitter.

I make a living as a social media manager for Strategy Solutions, a recruitment agency based in Sydney, Australia. The social media space is constantly changing, so my learning pace needs to keep up every day. On July 6th, I attended a Hubspot and Buffer masterclass webinar on social media trends. It was 60-minutes long, but here are the 3 key takeaways:

1. Facebook’s new algorithm is giving less traffic to content sites
Fast Company and Huffington Post talked about how this change is freaking out media outlets. Imagine receiving less news from Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and Rappler. What this means is that for publishers, like the one I manage for Strategy Solutions or my husband’s company page Redgolf, will get less exposure than it already does. At the very least, it informs me that posting by quantity will surely be less effective now.

What To Do Now? How To Deal With Facebook’s New Algorithm Change

Hubspot gave a few tips:
– One way is to make highly shareable content, because the newsfeed will soon prefer posts from family and friends newsfeed
– Highly clickable topics are health and productivity
– Having an image component to each blog post increases click rates by 40x more
– If you live in the US, ideal posting time is at 4AM
– People tend to share posts that make others look smart
– Create something that has a story behind it. Add an emotional component

2. Live video is doing very well
Think Periscope, Snapchat and Facebook Live – all social platforms that encourage personal broadcasting. Snapchat in particular, which has been around since my college days in San Francisco but I found it too immature. Now it’s one of the fastest growing social networks and is the number one network for teenagers. I got so convinced I signed up for an account. Indeed I enjoyed seeing live snaps from Paris Fashion Week and the end of Ramadan last night.

(Follow me on Snapchat: @nericrystal)

3. Facebook videos get 135% more views than images alone
Videos are hot in social media right now. This makes me so happy because I produce lots of videos about Cebu life. In fact one month ago, I did an experiment in finding out how much better native Facebook video performs than Youtube.

My Facebook stats said I have 7 likes and 3 comments. On the other hand, my native post got 501 views. This proves to me that native Facebook videos perform much better than sharing on a third party app like Youtube.

(Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: Crystal Neri)

Hubspot shared a few tips on videos:
– Grab the audience in the first few seconds
– Create content for each social platform. For example, shorter clips tend to perform better on Twitter
– 85% of people who watch videos do not listen to sound, so all the more important to include closed captioning

BONUS: TWITTER HACK

I did something to my Twitter account that stunned me. Inspired by the new things I’m learning, I finally took the time to curate my Twitter list. That means I created lists based on categories such as Close family and friends, News, Resources and Learning, Travel Bloggers, Airlines, Affiliations, and more. I also followed the top 20 social media followers according to Hubspot and put them on a list, too.

Voilà! Within two days, I gained over 100 followers. My hunch is coupled with those two activities and my optimized Twitter profile; it was an easy choice for people to just click “follow.” Now that I have Twitter lists I can easily track accounts using Hootsuite streams. It’s a complicated to explain but perhaps for some other blog post.

If there’s a truth to the saying, “work never ends,” social media is the perfect example of that. There are just too many tips and tricks to learn in this ever-changing industry. The more I learn, though, the more everything makes sense to me. As long as at the end of the day, it’s still about making a genuine connection.

For more tips and tricks on social media, follow me on my favorite network Twitter (@nericrystal) or in my new Snapchat account (nericrystal).