Have you been affected by the Facebook algorithm change?
Earlier this month, Facebook announced in a blog post that they will be putting greater emphasis on human assessments of what constitutes as a “meaningful” post. Using their Feed Quality Panel, they have asked over a thousand people to rate their experience every day in an effort to improve the content they see.
Through this research it was reported that users have a better News Feed experience when the stories they see at the top are stories they are both likely to rate highly and likely to engage with. Thus, this has lead to Facebook updating the News Feed to combine these two signals. This new Facebook algorithm change will rank stories higher in the News Feed depending on whether people take action on it (E.g: it looks at the probability a user will like, comment on, click or share a story) as well as taking into account what people want to see at the top of their feed.
Facebook Software Engineers Cheng Zhang and Si Chen have stated that some pages will see an increase in referral traffic and others may see a decline in referral traffic, depending on the composition of audience and posting activity of the page. If your page suffers the latter, it will be worth looking at the analytics of your posts to see what ticks the boxes for this new algorithm.
In cases such as this, it is always worth revisiting your content calendar and looking at how things can be refreshed. Alternatively, if this organic approach doesn’t get you the results you’re after you can always pay to boost your posts. Although this may not be favourable for many Facebook business users, it does allow you to target specific groups and guarantees your ad will be circulated through people’s newsfeeds. However, it may not be an effective use of your marketing budget. So it is worth having a strategy in place to ensure you know what your marketing goals are and if this is the right medium to be using (E.g: Do you just want people reading and clicking your post? Are you trying to raise awareness of your brand/product? Are you trying to capture data via a form? Or do you want people to spend money on your site?).
One content trend to bear in mind is the paradigm shift from written and photo content, to the more engaging realm of video and its many variations; live streaming, virtual reality and 360 degree videos, to name a few. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday, Mark Zuckerberg posited (as conveyed by Re/code), that “we’re going to be in a world a few years from now where the vast majority of the content that people consume online will be video”, which may be a hint towards the type of content that suits this new algorithm. It is worth noting that social media alone isn’t the only reason to be using video though, this sticky content will also greatly benefit your SEO, as well as aiding your hub and spokes strategy (which you should definitely have in place!). All of which will engage your audience for longer and keep them coming back.
Cheng Zhang and Si Chen have also warned to avoid encouraging people to like & share posts, as over time this may affect your ranking. Ultimately, the goal of this latest Facebook algorithm change is to help people see more engaging content, while ensuring pages are more captivating and diligent with what they post.
But it does beg the question, is this just another way of further montising the platform?
Furthermore, how will Twitter respond?
One thing is for certain, the ability to share your business’s message to a wide audience for free via social media is becoming a dying art.
For more information on posting tips and best practices, check out Facebook’s guide HERE.
