Facebook News Feed Algorithm Change
The Facebook news feed algorithm is constantly changing and as marketers we always need to adjust our sails to stay on target to reach our goals.
These constant changes may upset a lot of marketers.
However, in my opinion it should motivate businesses to continue evolving to become better as Facebook changes it’s news feed algorithm regularly.
So what do these changes mean to you?
What Do The Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm Changes Mean To You?
As a user of Facebook you will now start to see more posts in your Facebook news feed from your family and friends. This means more family pictures, vacation pictures, stories & videos your friends have shared, and status updates.
As a Facebook user myself, I love the change. Truth be told I hate my news feed. I find myself regularly hiding posts, un liking pages, and deleting “friends” due to content that isn’t relevant to me.
Here’s an update from Andam Mosseri, Facebook’s VP:
“Facebook was built on the idea of connecting people with their friends and family,” wrote Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s vp of product management.
“That is still the driving principle of news feed today. Our top priority is keeping you connected to the people, places and things you want to be connected to—starting with the people you are friends with on Facebook. That’s why if it’s from your friends, it’s in your feed, period—you just have to scroll down.”
Facebook Algorithm Change
Now what does this mean for businesses who publish updates on a regular basis?
You might think decreased engagement, but that’s not necessarily the case.
What this means is more pressure on publishers to create content that’s informing and entertaining if they expect to get news feed time.
Because after friends and family updates, Facebook’s research has shown that users have two other strong expectations when they come to their news feed which are:
- Informative Posts – Facebook states that after researching and listening to their users, they found that the users are more interested in information in their news feed that will inform them. This could be a current event, a news story on a celebrity, athlete, recipes, local news, national news, anything that informs and educates.
- Entertaining Posts – Facebook also states that users enjoy entertainment in their news feed. Examples are funny photos worth sharing, funny videos, celebrity entertainment updates or athlete updates.
I see this as a good thing and gone are the days of overly promoting your business and annoying self promotion.
How To Handle This Facebook News Feed Change
Due to this new Facebook News Feed change, your goal as a marketer should be to create sharable content which informs and entertains your followers.
Hopefully this content will be good enough to entice your followers to share it on their own news feed.
This is how to avoid any decreased engagement in your marketing efforts.
If you stick to just driving traffic to…
- Capture pages
- Offers
- Products
(or anything that asks the user to take an action other than consuming content) you will lose out on this latest Facebook news feed algorithm change.
You still have to pay to play, which has been proven for over a year now.
Nothing new here….
But gone are the days of slapping up content for the sake of slapping up content.
If your strategy only focuses on organic reach you’ll most likely see a big decline in reach.
Those of you who have always focused on paid engagement strategies won’t see much of a difference.
However, in my opinion you may see higher costs per engagement if your content doesn’t focus on informing or entertaining.
How We’re Handling The Facebook Changes…
As for us, we’ll continue to build our audience through a “Likes campaign” that we run regularly to our Fan Page.
Additionally we will…
- Continue to provide informative articles such as this one
- Post to our Fan Page
- Run Facebook ads to increase the engagement and website traffic
As always… we’ll target our fans and custom audiences to continue to build the Know, Like, Trust factor in our business.
Facebook Changes: Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve read this article you know you need to post interesting, share worthy, content to build your audience and your brand.
Gone are the days of promoting oneself or one’s business on a personal page and thinking that will viewed favorably by your audience.
It won’t.
However, if you take the time to learn how to create strong content and then drive traffic to it through paid advertising…
… you’ll be well on your way to building a successful and profitable business.
If you’re looking for a surefire way to build your brand and your business using Facebook…
Be sure to click on the “Register Now” box below and attend our free Facebook training event.
