Understanding the Shift in FB Algorithm
Published Mar 28, 2018 12:05 am
By Mark Isaiah David
Last January, Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that it would implement changes that would affect what users would likely see on their FB newsfeeds. The reason? He said that they’ve “gotten feedback from our community that public content -- posts from businesses, brands and media -- is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
For Zuckerberg, the right response to this feedback was to shift Facebook’s goal from focusing on finding relevant content for users to helping them have “more meaningful social interactions.” The technocrat even admitted that such a move would likely also affect how users consume Facebook. “I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”
For ordinary users, the announcement simply means that they would see more posts from real people that they know versus the posts made by brands/corporations whose FB Pages they’ve liked. You’ve probably experienced this already – your FB newsfeed has been showing you more baby posts from your aunts compared to the flood of content from that comedy page you’ve been following for years.
For businesses/publishers, however, there’s a plague looming in the horizon: their page’s organic reach (the number of people who see their unpaid posts) will take a significant hit – enough for some experts to say that organic reach in Facebook is dead. Doug Baker, director of strategic services at digital agency AnalogFolk, was quoted by DigiDay UK saying that this is the “final nail in the existing coffin” of organic reach.
While big multinational companies would likely just shrug this off and adjust their multi-billion marketing budgets as needed, small companies that have been relying on their FB organic reach simply can’t do the same.
LittleThings, a woman-focused, 4-year-old site that connected to its audience by sharing feel-good stories and videos, shut down last February. Gretchen Tibbits, President and COO of the company, said that Facebook’s change in algorithm resulted to a fatal 75% drop in the site’s organic reach. In an internal memo that the company issued, the leaders of the company shared that, “there are only so many hits a digital media company can afford to absorb in this day and age, and we just exceeded ours.” If your company lives by Facebook, it seems, you can easily die by Facebook too.
It would be absurd to think that LittleThings would be the only company to be affected this way. Even big companies are scrambling to get ahead in Facebook’s new world order. A marketing specialist form a leading tech company in the country disclosed that they have already modified their KPIs to retarget and adjust their content to find the most relevant audiences. “These days, boosting is key – especially if your target is B2B. And our KPIs are based on boosted posts alone since organic reach is simply incomparable.”
Public Relations firms in the country are also quick to adapt to the changing times. Arvon Fernandez, Head of DiG at the EON Group, affirmed that the shift in FB algorithm hit brand pages significantly. “We had to spend more to get noticed or even to surface in the pages of our target. It’s fast becoming a game of how shareable your content is - how engaging, how thumb-stopping. This time, FB Likes are no longer the primary engagement metric. Posts have to be shared and/or commented on for you to be prioritized.” And like what was mentioned earlier, he agreed that “even KPIs have evolved based on this.”
Naturally, some are quick to capitalize in the paradigm shift. A social media manager at a startup who wants to remain anonymous disclosed that for their specific situation, they don’t mind the change in FB algorithm. “Since we’re a retail page, it doesn't make sense for customers to keep coming back to our page. We just boost – as much as budget allows – to serve specific posts to our target market. What gets boosted the most are posts about upcoming big sales at specific stores.” This type of post, he says, get additional traction since users keep commenting “HM?” (how much?) and therefore gets prioritized by Facebook.
But since not everyone is in the same situation (or can afford to boost posts), here are some tips on what small businesses/FB pages can do to enhance the their chances on getting prioritized by the new FB algorithm:
REMIND CUSTOMERS TO FOLLOW
Users can still make sure that posts from their Liked pages will appear on their newsfeed if they choose “See First” in their newsfeed settings – and you can remind them of that periodically.Just don’t overdo it so that your loyal followers don’t get annoyed.
START A GROUP
Facebook Groups thrive on user interaction. Just imagine if you were the admin of the various nostalgia groups on Facebook that recently exploded in membership. If you excel at subtle marketing, Facebook Groups are a low-key, potentially high-impact way to reach your audience.
CREATE CONTENT THAT CONNECTS
The FB news feed will prioritize posts that generate authentic engagement with users -- posts that receive more shares and likes, and most importantly, comments. You will need to cultivate genuine connections with your audience through your posts. The FB algorithm change may necessitate a similar shift in how you create content. Instead of churning out content for your brand, for example, a more effective tactic would be to generate content for your customers.It goes against traditional marketing approaches, but this capitalizes on the FB algorithm evolution.
Also, mind how audiences can consume your content. Before users can comment, like,and share your post, it needs to be user-friendly. Optimize your videos to be mobile-friendly. Using square videos, for example, is an easy way to make your content stand out in the customer feed. Including text on your video also makes it accessible since more than 80% of Facebook video is viewed without sound. Minding these things can get you the most mileage out of your content.
PROMPT INTERACTION, BUT DON’T BE BAIT-Y
Writing about posts that are timely and relevant, including questions in your post, or shrewdly riding on the current trending memes are great in encouraging your audience to comment their opinions on your posts. However, refrain from being spammy/uncool when you incite interaction. Facebook stated that using ‘engagement-bait’ to goad people into commenting on posts isn’t considered as meaningful interaction, and would therefore be de-prioritized in the newsfeed.
Fernandez warns, “Brands are ‘penalized’-- demoted in ranking, when they overtly trick users to share posts.” Using obvious tricks as “Share this post to win a prize!” can backfire.“It all comes down to quality -- creating content that would make the target want to stop for a minute in order to give his point-of-view (versus just passively scrolling and liking).” He further advised that including a call-to-action in the post might help.
GO LIVE
‘Live’ videos are intrinsically interaction-friendly. Zuckerberg even admitted that Live videos get six times as many interactions as traditional videos. So if Live videos aren’t a usual feature in your FB page, now is a good time to learn and start churning those out.
Upon further analysis, another concern about FB’s algorithm change arises: if all that we see in our newsfeeds are our friends and family – statistically, people who are like us – wouldn’t this just strengthen our tribal mentality and increase xenophobia (dislike or fear of other cultures)? If all we hear are views that our like ours, wouldn’t that just keep us further imprisoned in our own social bubbles?
Given how powerful Facebook has become in our society, it is imperative that we give more thought to our usage and consumption of the social media platform.
For Zuckerberg, the right response to this feedback was to shift Facebook’s goal from focusing on finding relevant content for users to helping them have “more meaningful social interactions.” The technocrat even admitted that such a move would likely also affect how users consume Facebook. “I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”
For ordinary users, the announcement simply means that they would see more posts from real people that they know versus the posts made by brands/corporations whose FB Pages they’ve liked. You’ve probably experienced this already – your FB newsfeed has been showing you more baby posts from your aunts compared to the flood of content from that comedy page you’ve been following for years.
For businesses/publishers, however, there’s a plague looming in the horizon: their page’s organic reach (the number of people who see their unpaid posts) will take a significant hit – enough for some experts to say that organic reach in Facebook is dead. Doug Baker, director of strategic services at digital agency AnalogFolk, was quoted by DigiDay UK saying that this is the “final nail in the existing coffin” of organic reach.
While big multinational companies would likely just shrug this off and adjust their multi-billion marketing budgets as needed, small companies that have been relying on their FB organic reach simply can’t do the same.
LittleThings, a woman-focused, 4-year-old site that connected to its audience by sharing feel-good stories and videos, shut down last February. Gretchen Tibbits, President and COO of the company, said that Facebook’s change in algorithm resulted to a fatal 75% drop in the site’s organic reach. In an internal memo that the company issued, the leaders of the company shared that, “there are only so many hits a digital media company can afford to absorb in this day and age, and we just exceeded ours.” If your company lives by Facebook, it seems, you can easily die by Facebook too.
It would be absurd to think that LittleThings would be the only company to be affected this way. Even big companies are scrambling to get ahead in Facebook’s new world order. A marketing specialist form a leading tech company in the country disclosed that they have already modified their KPIs to retarget and adjust their content to find the most relevant audiences. “These days, boosting is key – especially if your target is B2B. And our KPIs are based on boosted posts alone since organic reach is simply incomparable.”
Public Relations firms in the country are also quick to adapt to the changing times. Arvon Fernandez, Head of DiG at the EON Group, affirmed that the shift in FB algorithm hit brand pages significantly. “We had to spend more to get noticed or even to surface in the pages of our target. It’s fast becoming a game of how shareable your content is - how engaging, how thumb-stopping. This time, FB Likes are no longer the primary engagement metric. Posts have to be shared and/or commented on for you to be prioritized.” And like what was mentioned earlier, he agreed that “even KPIs have evolved based on this.”
Naturally, some are quick to capitalize in the paradigm shift. A social media manager at a startup who wants to remain anonymous disclosed that for their specific situation, they don’t mind the change in FB algorithm. “Since we’re a retail page, it doesn't make sense for customers to keep coming back to our page. We just boost – as much as budget allows – to serve specific posts to our target market. What gets boosted the most are posts about upcoming big sales at specific stores.” This type of post, he says, get additional traction since users keep commenting “HM?” (how much?) and therefore gets prioritized by Facebook.
But since not everyone is in the same situation (or can afford to boost posts), here are some tips on what small businesses/FB pages can do to enhance the their chances on getting prioritized by the new FB algorithm:
REMIND CUSTOMERS TO FOLLOW
Users can still make sure that posts from their Liked pages will appear on their newsfeed if they choose “See First” in their newsfeed settings – and you can remind them of that periodically.Just don’t overdo it so that your loyal followers don’t get annoyed.
START A GROUP
Facebook Groups thrive on user interaction. Just imagine if you were the admin of the various nostalgia groups on Facebook that recently exploded in membership. If you excel at subtle marketing, Facebook Groups are a low-key, potentially high-impact way to reach your audience.
CREATE CONTENT THAT CONNECTS
The FB news feed will prioritize posts that generate authentic engagement with users -- posts that receive more shares and likes, and most importantly, comments. You will need to cultivate genuine connections with your audience through your posts. The FB algorithm change may necessitate a similar shift in how you create content. Instead of churning out content for your brand, for example, a more effective tactic would be to generate content for your customers.It goes against traditional marketing approaches, but this capitalizes on the FB algorithm evolution.
Also, mind how audiences can consume your content. Before users can comment, like,and share your post, it needs to be user-friendly. Optimize your videos to be mobile-friendly. Using square videos, for example, is an easy way to make your content stand out in the customer feed. Including text on your video also makes it accessible since more than 80% of Facebook video is viewed without sound. Minding these things can get you the most mileage out of your content.
PROMPT INTERACTION, BUT DON’T BE BAIT-Y
Writing about posts that are timely and relevant, including questions in your post, or shrewdly riding on the current trending memes are great in encouraging your audience to comment their opinions on your posts. However, refrain from being spammy/uncool when you incite interaction. Facebook stated that using ‘engagement-bait’ to goad people into commenting on posts isn’t considered as meaningful interaction, and would therefore be de-prioritized in the newsfeed.
Fernandez warns, “Brands are ‘penalized’-- demoted in ranking, when they overtly trick users to share posts.” Using obvious tricks as “Share this post to win a prize!” can backfire.“It all comes down to quality -- creating content that would make the target want to stop for a minute in order to give his point-of-view (versus just passively scrolling and liking).” He further advised that including a call-to-action in the post might help.
GO LIVE
‘Live’ videos are intrinsically interaction-friendly. Zuckerberg even admitted that Live videos get six times as many interactions as traditional videos. So if Live videos aren’t a usual feature in your FB page, now is a good time to learn and start churning those out.
Upon further analysis, another concern about FB’s algorithm change arises: if all that we see in our newsfeeds are our friends and family – statistically, people who are like us – wouldn’t this just strengthen our tribal mentality and increase xenophobia (dislike or fear of other cultures)? If all we hear are views that our like ours, wouldn’t that just keep us further imprisoned in our own social bubbles?
Given how powerful Facebook has become in our society, it is imperative that we give more thought to our usage and consumption of the social media platform.