Hold the phone – Facebook is changing its algorithm! *Cue sounding the alarm and running around like a headless chicken*. We’re only kidding, but we’ve seen lots of think-pieces and reactions that have been pretty OTT and apocalyptic.
This is big news, but hey, you can adapt. Like every adjustment before this, it just requires some smarter thinking.
At Lately, we’re trying to get to grips with what Facebook’s updates mean too, so we thought it’d be a good idea to get into detective mode together and take this challenge on…(we’re thinking Sherlock).
Mark Zuckerberg’s statements are still pretty ambiguous, but on the whole, he seems to be doing some soul-searching and looking to address the fact Facebook has had a pretty *massive* impact on the way we view and access news recently.
It’s become a news source, whether Facebook likes it or not…and it really doesn’t. These changes point to a move that looks to prioritize ridding the platform of the ‘fake news’ that’s toxified the brand, before elections in 2018.
So, we totally get that the pivot back to news feeds populated by your friends and family, sits far more comfortably with Zuckerberg and his original mission statements that emphasized ‘connection’.
Let’s take a deep dive into what Facebook’s news feed changes could mean and do some myth-busting while we’re here.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Facebook News Feed said that the new algorithm is all about “making updates to ranking, so people have more opportunities to interact with the people they care about.”
And we can see this theme running throughout Facebook’s statements about the upcoming changes.
It all seems to stem back to users being more able to create ‘meaningful’ relationships and have ‘meaningful’ interactions. Facebook’s identifying that the rest of the noise (brands, adverts, news sources) is clouding people’s ability to easily connect with people they know and engage with them.
What to expect:
Facebook is adjusting before it is imperative for them to do so. They’re apprehensive that other platforms could lure disenchanted Facebook users to their product if people are bored of adverts, news and sponsored content filling up their Newsfeed. As Buzzfeed notes, Facebook’s already losing “friend and family sharing” to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, so trying to stem the exodus is a top priority.
Obviously, this is a bit scary for brands who want to generate organic traffic and have recently changed their content model to suit Facebook’s algorithm i.e a pivot towards video content. Less content and less video from brands seems to be the new flavor of the month at Facebook.
Family and friendly content is going to be favored by Facebook – that’s the most important message that jumps out from their announcement.
There’s not much that brands can do about that, but there’s no reason why good branded content can’t sit harmoniously alongside family and BFF content.
Here’s a point that should make you feel better *trumpet plays* – if you’re doing content properly and have a good content strategy anyway then you shouldn’t be too worried. Meaningful interaction with your audience and valuable content should be the bedrock of your strategy. If you do this already then…keep doing it!
What you should be doing:
‘Meaningful interactions’ need to be built into your content strategy – you should be doing this anyway, but you need to prioritize it even more.
What’s meaningful and what’s not though?
It’s quite a subjective idea, but we’d imagine that advice, recommendations, friendly discussion, personal stories etc are all the types of interaction that Facebook mean. Interesting content that sparks discussion and engagement with your audience will be useful.
Jon Loomer has some great pointers: “Instead of “Here’s my thing, give me money, give me clicks” center your attention around, “This is interesting, what do you think?”
Comments and comment length will be important too. Facebook thinks that comments are more valuable than ‘likes’ and they’re higher value. Facebook Group content will benefit from this a lot and you’ll probably see an increase in visibility because of the amount of conversations going on in groups now. News that prompts comments and discussions will still be favored to some degree as well.
Mark Schaefer makes some really important points about the new changes. He responded to the fact that marketers were worried about what the new algorithm will do to their organic traffic. But Schaefer argues that this has been going on since 2015 anyway: “Facebook formally announced in 2015 that it would begin penalizing business pages and reduce their organic reach”.
So, organic reach is pretty bad on Facebook anyway, “organic reach for an average business is less than 1 percent”. With that in mind, you still need to invest in Facebook to increase the reach of your branded content regardless, it’s already a pay to play world, this algorithm it just escalating it faster.
Good content and a strong audience are all very well, but Facebook is emphasizing that your content needs to ‘move’. People must be sharing, engaging and interacting with your content for it to be meaningful.
Has much really changed with this new announcement? Well, if you’re a brand that concentrates on creating compelling content that sparks discussion, conversation and provides value anyway, then it shouldn’t be ground-breaking. If you’re not doing this and post out any old content, looking for a certain amount of likes each time then yes, you’ll notice a difference.
Video time, referral traffic and organic reach will decrease, but if you can counteract this with meaningful, quality content that gets people talking and sharing, you’ll be able to withstand changes.
Back to Jon Loomer with this pearl of wisdom: “just create high quality content, stupid.”
