CHANGES COMING TO FACEBOOK’S ALGORITHM
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announces changes to Facebook’s most trafficked section, the News Feed.
Facebook is radically altering the algorithm that determines what gets to the top of people’s News Feed, this is one of the changes the social media network has planned to address growing controversy over the big role it plays in people’s lives and in society on a daily basis.
WHAT ZUCKERBERG HAD TO SAY
As we all know, Facebook was created to bring people together, and throughout the years it has been unclear as to whereas Facebook was keeping this core value top-of-mind. Controversy in the News Feed, as well as discussion almost makes it seems as if it was doing the opposite, at least for a some time.
Here are some words from Facebook’s very own Mark Zuckerberg:
“We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.
But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
– Mark Zuckerberg
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR BUSINESS?
Some of these changes will affect the way businesses’ content appears in the News Feed and may have an impact on how many people are able to see that content, and there will most likely be decreases in the amount of engagement that this content receives.
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people…
Now, I want to be clear: by making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook, and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable. And if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term too.
At its best, Facebook has always been about personal connections. By focusing on bringing people closer together — whether it’s with family and friends, or around important moments in the world — we can help make sure that Facebook is time well spent.”
– Mark Zuckerberg
Does this mean Facebook is eliminating Page content from News Feed?
No. This update is not the same as the recent tests where all Page content was moved to the Explore Tab. Page posts will still appear in News Feed, though there may be fewer of them.
FACEBOOK IS ALWAYS RUNNING TESTS TO CREATE THE BEST EXPERIENCE FOR ITS USERS
As any (smart) advertiser would do, Facebook continuously tests on the platform to see and understand what is it that people enjoy most of. Whether that is making changes to the algorithm, or having videos start playing on their own, something is always going on to gather data and deliver a better user experience.
As with some recent tests that made their way to the surface, here is a word from Facebook’s Head of News Feed, Adam Mosseri:
“As with all tests we run, we may learn new things that lead to additional tests in the coming months so we can better understand what works best for people and publishers.”
COST OF ADVERTISING TO GO UP AS WE SEE THESE CHANGES (SLOWLY) ROLL OUT
As these changes (slowly) rollout, brands, businesses and organizations will start to notice a decline in the amount of reach, impressions, engagement, and clicks that their content is receiving.
As businesses begin to notice, they will realize that they need to do something about it in order to maintain relevance, and reach the people that they want to reach.
Businesses will realize that Facebook advertising is something that they HAVE to do, and is not much of an option at this point. The more businesses advertising on Facebook, the less real estate to advertise on, especially with the new update to the News Feed, which will limit (or completely remove) the number of ads that go on the News Feed, creating a “smaller” space for businesses to serve their ads.
The increasing number of businesses, paired with a decrease in space for ads, can only equal an increased cost of advertising.
