Facebook’s recently made some changes that might affect how you promote your available pets and your organization.

The social media company announced in August that it would start penalizing pages that post a lot of LOLcat-style memes.

These graphics combined with text are very popular everywhere on the Internet, including nearly every social media platform.

Because of that, they tend to drive a lot of engagment — likes, shares and comments — on Facebook. And because Facebook uses engagement levels to determine how many of your followers will see your posts, posting that kind of content has been a great way for adoption messages to get more viewers.

But there’s a dark side to that kind of content, says social media consultant Christie Keith.

“Too many Facebook pages post endless streams of content designed to do nothing more than incite social sharing,” she said. “They aren’t seeking to inform, inspire, or even to entertain. Their entire purpose is to increase their own fanbase so they can market to them, and so they can use their Facebook follower count to market themselves to others.”

This content is typically posted with a plea for likes, shares and comments. “Sometimes the plea is direct,” she said. “They just flat-out ask you to share and like it. Other times, they ask a leading question, trying to get you to comment.”

Facebook announced that it would start cracking down on this type of content, telling TechCrunch, “Pages producing some low quality, meme content can expect to see a slight decrease” in how many of their fans see that content. The service also indicated it would similarly penalize posts that appeared to be pandering for likes and shares, including by directly requesting them.

Some social media professionals think Facebook has no right to penalize popular content just because the company doesn’t like it. Others think stopping “low quality” content from overwhelming Facebook is worth a little editorializing.

“Regardless of whether it’s a good thing or bad thing, it’s going to impact pet adoption on Facebook,” Keith said. “I’ve long recommended using photos combined with text to generate a lot of shares. I’ve also encouraged animal organizations to ask their followers to share their posts, because when you do that, you get more shares.

“However, since Facebook announced this change, I’ve heard from a small number of groups who have seen their engagement rates go down recently, without a change in their posting strategy. I’ve also noticed this on a few pages I manage, that total views on meme-type content are lower than they used to be.”

How can animal organizations get around this? “I’m not sure where things will ultimately come to rest when the shake-up is over,” Keith said. “But if you’ve noticed less engagement on your page, consider making some changes and see if it helps.”

Her tips:

• Make sure memes are only a small percentage of the content you post.
• Post a lot of really interesting content, such as links to your organization’s website or blog, or those of other organizations, or pet adoption-relevent news stories.
• Ask people to share your adoption posts without using the word “share” — try asking them to “spread the story” instead.

Additionally, she said, shift your focus to photos. “Facebook is in love with photos right now,” Keith pointed out. “Not only have they made it so you can upload any photo you’d like to go with a link you share, they display these photos in newsfeeds in the same way they share an uploaded photo: big.

“So add great photos of your available pets to your shared links, or share their photos without any text on them directly on your Facebook page,” she suggested. “And don’t give up on memes; they’re still popular and will still get shared more than other content. As long as that’s not all you post, they should still work for you.”