Facebook’s New Algorithm & Other News

06 Jul 2016 Nicole Gittleman
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in Social Media

Facebook has undergone quite a few changes in the last month. The most recent update to Facebook’s news feed algorithm is one that brands and advertisers might not be too thrilled about.

The new algorithm will put a greater emphasis on content posted by a user’s friends and family and less on that of publishers and brands. So, you’ll probably notice a lot more happy engagement and baby posts on your feed, while the news and content from your favorite brands will be buried deep in Facebookland. What does this mean for brands that have worked for years to create a loyal fan following and to build traffic and revenue?

There’s no concrete way to predict how the new algorithm will influence a publisher’s page, but some pages seem to have already experienced a negative impact. Facebook engineering director Lars Backstrom wrote in a blog post that "the specific impact on your page's distribution and other metrics may vary depending on the composition of your audience." If a page’s post usually receives a lot of engagement from fans—whether in the form of liking, commenting, or sharing—then they might not notice an obvious decline in their referral traffic.

The new algorithm will force all publishers to rethink their social strategy. You might not be able to magically make your way onto a user’s news feed any longer, so you’ll want to make sure your content is as engaging as possible when you do get eyes on your post.  Instead of focusing directly on selling an idea to your audience, focus on getting them to interact with the content. These interactions—likes, comments, and shares—might just help your content stay in people’s news feeds a little bit longer. Simply put, reel in an audience through your content, and convert them on your landing page versus attempting to real them in with promotion.

This update is a prime example of Facebook exerting their power as a business that's trying to adapt a "pay-to-play" model. Investing in boosted posts and website clicks advertisements are now the only surefire way to get in front of your intended audience. Again, this is creating a need to put out content that is engaging, interesting, and innovative. Facebook's algorithm updates may seem awful for most brands, but they're doing them a favor, by forcing us to rethink our content strategies and innovate, innovate, innovate.

Facebook Creative Hub

In more positive news for publishers, Facebook announced the introduction of the Creative Hub, where agencies can play with different ad formats for both online and mobile. This update is in response to the increasing use of mobile devices and the fact that people consume content in entirely different ways on mobile than on other channels. In April, Marketingland released data which illustrated that nearly 80% of all social media time is spent on mobile. Come Q4, we anticipate desktop' share of social media time spent will decrease drastically.

 

comScore cross-platform report

 

Since most ad creation happens on a desktop but most of it is viewed on mobile, it’s important for agencies and brands to understand how these two channels differ. Creative Hub, which should be available in the next few months, allows users to preview their work in a mobile feed and to easily share mock-ups with stakeholders.

Measuring In-Store Sales

Facebook is also introducing new ways to increase and measure store visits and sales. While people are increasingly shopping and browsing online, most actual purchases still take place in stores (more than 90% of retail sales, in fact.) Facebook is now launching a store locator to help people find and navigate to the nearest store location—taking them directly from mobile to in-store. This new store locator removes the annoyances of having to navigate a company’s website to find the nearest store and gives users all the information they need without having to even leave the Facebook app.

All in all, it’s been a busy month for Facebook. Check out all the other changes that happened this month on Facebook’s monthly blog post. While the Creative Hub and the new advertisement configuration features create exciting new opportunities for publishers to interact with their audience, the new news feed algorithm will force companies to rethink their social strategy, the content they’re putting out, and the social budget they had approved months before all of this happened.

 

Written by: Devon Kelliher, Social Marketing Intern

Social Media

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