Social Media marketing is an ever-changing landscape. What consistently works well for your law firm will change from time to time. You must adapt accordingly or quickly fall behind your competitors. 2015 is no exception!

Facebook rolled out considerable changes on January 01 that will affect visibility, traffic and leads. The good news is that this change will only significantly affect those who are doing it wrong anyway.

Last year, Facebook slashed business pages’ organic visibility, with some users seeing as much as an 80% reduction in the amount of fans reached with organic posts. They are taking it one step further this year, by reducing visibility even further if your posts contain overly promotional material, such as calls to action or contact information.

This change is slightly akin to Google’s algorithm updates, which force businesses to play by Google’s rules, avoid shortcuts and “black hat” tactics. Facebook wants to show users relevant content; users don’t want to see overly-promotional material.

In other words, you have to play by Facebook’s rules.

This means one large change for businesses: they can no longer solely rely on free promotion via Facebook. You have to pay to play.

Organic posting (unpaid posts that reach your followers by natural means) are still worthwhile. Firm news, community events, safety information, relevant news and photos are still a great way to connect with your online audience and attract more members of your community.

These types of posts can establish you as a thought leader in your field and connect with your fans on a more personal level, while your ad campaign can generate healthy visibility, traffic and leads.

This should rid the News Feed of spam, while giving businesses and marketers a clear avenue to reach their goals.

Many marketers have been taking this approach for a while anyway, especially since Facebook introduced its first visibility hindrance. Hopefully, this change will further reward marketers who take this approach, while punishing lazy marketers who just want to take the easy way out.