Facebook is back to cleaning up their platform to demote people and Pages that have a bad habit of using engagement baiting to boost engagement levels for their posts.
Engagement baiting comes in the form of Vote Baiting, React Baiting, Share Baiting, Tag Baiting and Content Baiting.
According to Facebook, “Publishers and other businesses that use engagement bait tactics in their posts should expect their reach on these posts to decrease. Meanwhile, Pages that repeatedly share engagement bait posts will see significant drops in reach.”
Aside from the really spammy examples in the image above, many companies use these tactics to promote their products through continuous giveaways on their Facebook Page by asking people to Like a post, Comment to the post, and Tag three additional friends in order to have a chance at winning the promoted product. Obviously, these types of posts get the largest reach and response compared to standard content posts – for now.
Facebook’s goal is to maintain a good user experience for everyone on their platform, and most reasonable people would agree that demoting or eliminating the annoying “junk bait” from their News Feed is a good thing. What remains to be seen is if legitimate businesses are going to be negatively impacted by engagement baiting with their own products and promotions.
The surefire way to guarantee reach and delivery of your message is to run paid advertising campaigns to your best customers and prospects. Social offers great consumer data sets with a true interactive and native ad platform – and the ability to measure your return on ad spend.
If you continue to see your company’s reach and engagement decline with Social Media content, our proven ad strategies and services are only a phone call away.