How does Facebook's news feed changes affect you?
Author: Kate Dempsey
When Facebook announced last week it would be making changes to the way it ranks posts, videos and ultimately, how it controls your news feed, immediate questions (think: concerns) were raised around how this would negatively affect businesses, organisations and companies using the platform to advertise products and services.
So let's get into the nitty-gritty.
Facebook's changes to how it rank posts comes as part of its 'Closer Together' campaign in a bid to encourage more meaningful social interactions with our nearest and dearest. This means they will show fewer posts from businesses and pages, and prioritise posts from family and friends.
On 11 January 2018, a Facebook spokesperson said, "With this update, we will also prioritise posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion. We will also prioritise posts from friends and family over public content, consistent with our News Feed values."
Similar to the 'Edge Rank' algorithm from a few years ago which combined affinity with weight and time decay (and was a self-proclaimed 'more personalised experience'), these latest news feed changes see a focus on person to person rather than person to page highlighting to a user the stories and people that matter the most. In a nutshell, Facebook will prioritise posts from your connections that matter to you rather than posts from a page that matters to you.
Facebook is also saying that while they may see a decline in time spent on Facebook, that time spent by users will become more meaningful. Which may mean in the long run that overall engagement with the platform will increase.
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Firstly, I applaud Facebook. My faith in the platform has been waning for a while now and I personally believe they've made the right move in getting back to what the platform was originally designed to do - connect you with family and friends. I have found myself endlessly scrolling for interesting content, particularly that of my family and friends, only to see uninspiring news articles and only slightly humorous memes. And if I didn't regularly interact with a page or added it as a favourite in my news feed preferences, I never saw it anyway. Unless of course that business sponsored the post using a large chunk of their advertising budget. (Side note: not all businesses are completely clear of just how much money should be spent per post so often you are saturated with the same posts day after day. Think: annoying).
Secondly, on a professional level, while we are yet to fully understand the impact this change will have on pages, my approach to cultivating social content remains unchanged. As a digital marketing consultant, my role is to create online content that showcases a product or service by telling a story to attract new fans and re-engage the existing audience, subsequently generating leads and converting them to website visitors (think: generate $$).
The way in which I go about this for each client or business is different depending on if they are B2C or B2B, however when cultivating content I stick to three key things when approaching a social media strategy:
1. Content must be compelling: content 101 right there. It has to be as, without delivering mind-blowing content, you're never going to stand out. You have to peak interest, grab their attention, jump out at them. Whether it's clever or inspirational storytelling, a unique image or a content download that will make their lives easier, the content must be compelling. And don't forget the importance of high quality copy to go with it. Too many times I have seen an outstanding image let down by dull or boring copy.
2. Content must be consistent: this applies to both the regularity of posts and style of content. My biggest bugbear with businesses and social media? Existing but not being present. By this I mean when a business subscribes to a platform such as Facebook or Instagram, but when you check their page they haven't posted since 30 May 2017. This is unacceptable in my rule book. Why take the time to sign up, invite people in to engage and then not give back to your audience. So set yourself up with a calendar, commit to a frequency and stick to it.
Secondly, your style of content must be consistent. This goes for all assets including imagery, colours, fonts and copy. Everything will look neater and your audience might come to recognise your style without even knowing who posted it. And if new content doesn't work in with your look and feel, don't post for the sake of it.
3. Content must be conversational: an important tactic of any social media strategy is to create content that encourages conversation. So whether you're asking a question or getting the opinions of your audience, make sure you use copy that invites the audience to participate rather than just observe.
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So does this change mean businesses will end up buying more online ads to promote themselves? This remains to be seen but even prior to these changes, I've seen a number of cases where pages achieved a large reach without the need to sponsor posts, simply by following the three "C's". Plus, if your fans are regularly engaging with your Facebook page (liking, sharing, commenting...) they'll see your high-quality posts organically.
Space in the news feed for pages and businesses has always been and continues to be limited, so any cultivator or creator responsible for developing content for Facebook pages should ensure they approach Facebook with the same goal: create useful and meaningful content to grow brand awareness and generate leads that convert to website traffic.