Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will be directing the Facebook team to change the way Facebook algorithms choose what content goes into News Feeds. These changes will de-emphasize commercial content from business pages and prioritize content from friends and family.

In a statement released on Facebook Zuckerberg said, “We’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

While these changes may seem drastic, the deprioritization of “organic reach” has been happening for several years. Hubspot reports that, “A study from Edgerank Checker found that between February 2012 and March 2014, organic reach for the average Facebook Page dropped from 16% to 6.5%.”

Current figures show organic reach as low as one to two percent for many pages. Even if Facebook moves to completely eliminate organic reach the loss is will only be a small percentage of a loss.

Businesses that utilize Facebook as a marketing platform may still need to adjust their marketing strategies to adapt to these new changes. The days when business could rely only on organic content to get their messages out to their audiences are officially behind us. Businesses still stand to benefit from the use of social media, the strategies for success are just different.

Paid content will still be used to reach audiences but businesses will see more competition. This means that ads will need to stand out more, have better targeting, and an increased ad budget. Organic posts won’t be used for generating large reach but will remain an important part of a business’s online presence and branding. These changes will cement the “Pay to Play” business model for Facebook.

As the competition gets more fierce it will become increasingly important for businesses to be more strategic with their social marketing plans. If you are worried about how these changes are going to affect your business, CLICK HERE to get a Free Analysis and see how your company can adapt their strategies to the changing social media landscape.