How can you future-proof your marketing while learning lessons from the past? Stay present. Take a step back from the particulars of social media upheaval, and stay focused on your messaging strategy.

As you probably know, Facebook is taking a big leap. It's changing radically. I won't try to explain it all to you. Mashable does a very thorough job explaining it as does Wired.

It represents both a risk and an opportunity. Let's say you've been working on a Facebook strategy for some time and the new changes are about to render some of your work meaningless. What do you do?

Part of the problem with trying to hire agencies or staff as social media experts is that when radical shifts in behavior or functionality happen, "experts" are in the same boat with everybody else. These changes are going to happen and they are going to keep happening.

The solution?

Well, first of all, constant innovation isn't a problem, it's a gift. Without it, users become less engaged with brand messaging over time. Platforms need to monetize, and that means they are going to continue to make it easier to reach your customers in better, more targeted, and more integrated ways.

In the case of Facebook, the overhaul gives brands a whole new playing field for being a non-intrusive, even essential, presence in users' online experience.

That means the 'solution' today is the same as it was last week. Create content that will jibe with your audience, and integrate your brand and product unique values and benefits into that content.

Strategy vs. Distribution

Facebook is a promotion and distribution channel. Actually, it is multiple channels. It allows users to customize their experience of the content that their friends and brands create. No matter what happens, you won't be able to control the path your content takes.

What you can do is envision how your products and content fit into your consumers' lives. How can you plot out the whole consumer journey? Consider what time of day and which activities you can add value to. These conceptual frameworks and others can guide your thinking apart from the particulars of distribution.

Variables and Constants

A medium like Facebook may change, but the constants are you and your consumers. Keep your focus on conceiving and executing on the content which will bring you closer to them, make your brand real and present to their lives.

Then, when variations happen in your distribution capabilities, you can roll with it, rather than letting those changes steamroll over your plans.