When Sim Partners, a provider of local and social marketing technology, stopped buying Facebook ads, Jay Hawkinson anticipated a drop in how often the company's posts would appear on the social network's news feed. The extent of the decline, however, was beyond anything he had imagined. SEE ALSO: Facebook for Android: 10 Tips for Power Users “We used Facebook advertising to help promote our page and content, but when we turned the ad campaign off, we saw a significant decrease in organic traffic to our page,” says Hawkinson, a partner at the company. “A small drop in organic traffic was expected with the loss of the ad promotions, but we experienced drops between 69% and 83%, numbers which are astounding.” Hawkinson's company wasn't alone. After Facebook tweaked its News Feed algorithm earlier this year, companies and their social media marketers had to watch as years of work were undermined seemingly overnight. Brands that committed time and money t...