Facebook recently announced that it has updated its news feed algorithm yet again!
Have you noticed while browsing through your personal news feed that now the posts are primarily your friends and family? That is because Facebook’s new algorithm prioritises these profile posts over page posts.
In an article on the Facebook Newsroom , the vice president of Product Management Adam Mosseri stated “Facebook was built on the idea of connecting people with their friends and family” and that it remains “a top priority”.
Facebook also announced some of its other core values behind their news feed algorithm. After posts from Friends and Family, Facebook want Users news feeds to “inform” and “entertain” using “authentic communication” and have explained that “this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some pages”.
What does this mean for us digital marketers?
Well for starters, our posts visibility are significantly impacted as they are pushed further down peoples news feeds so they likelihood of them being seen is reduced. So this in turn reduces our organic reach and increases the pressure to promote posts in order to get them seen.
So what can digital marketers do?
Digital marketers have to get even more creative when it comes to content, which may mean more man hours. Generic, spam-like & unpaid promotional posts will lose out! As mentioned above, additional investment into Facebook promoted posts and paid advertisements is a good place to begin, if viable. Also another way to combat this is to encourage people to directly share your content so it appears on their friends’ news feeds, which is a task in itself.
Facebook has 1.65 billion users so it remains crucial for any business to be active and visible on it. The digital marketing world has to adapt to Facebooks modifications and algorithm changes efficiently in order to take advantage of such an immense platform that is full of business opportunities.
So here’s to the next Facebook algorithm update and the new challenges it could bring…
If you are unsure about your social media strategy then talk to Swot Digital and find out more about our Social Media Services.
