Facebook updates its News Feed: what does this mean for brands?
Facebook has announced that it will soon prioritise posts from friends and family in the News Feed over posts from public pages. Its algorithm will favour posts that are likely to generate person-to-person interactions rather than person-to-page. Posts that spark genuine conversations and meaningful interactions between people will get more exposure.
Facebook says the move will not affect advertisements – users will continue to see the same ads as before. With the changes yet to take place, only time will tell.
Why have Facebook decided to make this change?
Facebook are trying to encourage more meaningful interactions rather than ‘passive’ usage of Facebook, which research has shown can contribute to feelings of depression and isolation. In contrast, connecting with people we care about by commenting on and engaging with ongoing discussions on social media improves wellbeing.
Facebook has long displayed concern over the decline in personal sharing – users posting content about their own lives – in favour of simply sharing links to the wider web or professionally produced videos and photos.
Users are more likely to share details about their own lives if they see others doing the same, and so promoting organic content begets more organic content.
How will it affect brands using paid media?
Organic reach, video watch time and referral traffic have been in decline for a while – this is not a new development.
Pages with posts that generally don’t receive many reactions or comments will see the biggest decrease in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect.
What are our top tips for brands?
Become even smarter with your social media advertising
Apply highly accurate segmentation techniques.
Drive better results by matching ad creatives with audience insights.
Paid posts will have to be: engaging, original and make people feel good – as well as encouraging interactions.
Make better use of Facebook Live
Live videos tend to generate more comments and interactions because people can do so in real time. Live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times more interactions than regular videos. Here at Mighty Social, we recommend the use of short videos to drive engagement.
Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in the News Feed. Making better use of Facebook Groups, including Groups linked to pages, is another avenue to explore, with those discussions within Groups helping to prop up Page engagement.
In short, these changes have been a long time coming. It will declutter News Feeds and make Facebook a more enjoyable place to spend time. For brands, however, this will mean working harder and smarter to capture their followers’ attention – but innovation is never a bad thing.
Mighty Social have built the ATOM, our new audience builder technology which gets the best creative in front of the most responsive audience to take the guesswork out of targeting. It is the ideal solution for achieving smarter targeting and better results. It future-proofs the effectiveness of paid media in the new Facebook world.