Last Friday, upon first opening email for the day, the email at the top of my inbox was from Social Media Examiner. (BTW: This has been a great resource.) Embedded in the email was a recording of a Facebook Live they had done the night before explaining the changes to expect from Facebook pages. The next day, Social Media Examiner did a podcast on both Facebook organic reach and Instagram.
If you use Facebook Pages or Instagram as a communication tactic, you definitely want to listen in.
Then, that day – all day – I had the privilege of working in a school district. My job in this district is to help them discover the best communication strategy for their district. In the world of communication – and I can’t say this enough – the strategy first, then tactics. And that was the work we were doing. Kudos to them!
Still, I won’t deny it: I was thinking about how the news about Facebook and Instagram would fit into this district’s plan and many other plans, too.
At the end of the day, I opened my Twitter. At the top of my feed was a post and link to a blog post from the National School Public Relations Association. The post was written by Nicole Kirby, APR (Thank you NSPRA and Nicole Kirby!)
She was quite succinct in how she plans to approach this new information. Her approach is:
“Monitor my district page’s insights to see how the algorithm changes affect us.
Continue to try to post the kind of content to which our district’s patrons respond. This will require us to be creative without trying to game this system with gimmicks.
If we see a dramatic drop in reach, evaluate whether Facebook is still a useful tactical tool to help us achieve our strategic communication goals.”
I think that is exactly the right approach. Tactics are tactics. Tactics are not the communication plan. Whether it is social media, an e-newsletter, or a video – the tactics are how we deliver the message, they are not the strategy.
Communication professionals who are trained in the art and science of communication, will look carefully at all possible solutions to the communication needs of an organization and respond professionally. Then, when things change, they change their plans, too. That’s a part of the process.
No doubt, the FB news wasn’t great, but I wasn’t in despair. I think I will take Nicole’s advice. It is very sound!
How will you respond?
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