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Recent Facebook Changes - What You Need to Know

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

On January 11, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced a major change about the Facebook news feed. In this tip, we discuss these changes and, more importantly, share several strategies to adjust to the changes for your business and social media marketing plan.

Here is an excerpt from the Zuckerberg post:

One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent. …. we’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. The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups. As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.

From Facebook’s Adam Mosseri, Head of News Feed

What is the update?

Today we use signals like how many people react to, comment on or share posts to determine how high they appear in News Feed.

With this update, we will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to—whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion.

We will also prioritize posts from friends and family over public content, consistent with our News Feed values.

Does this mean you are eliminating Page content from News Feed?

No. This update is not the same as the recent tests where all Page content was moved to the Explore Tab. Page posts will still appear in News Feed, though there may be fewer of them.

What Can You Do to Adjust and Leverage Facebook for Your Business?

Post engaging, quality content that prompts comments and interaction – Instead of prioritizing posts based on comments and shares, Facebook will now push content to the top of your News Feed that the algorithms predict will spark meaningful “back-and-forth discussion.” This change means a less crowded news feed and ultimately minimal posts from businesses and brands and more posts from friends and family. Business Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in the News Feed. The length of comments will be weighted more in the algorithm also. Post 1 to 2 times maximum daily on Facebook.

Don’t use “engagement-bait” posts – “Using ‘engagement-bait’ to goad people into commenting on posts is not a meaningful interaction, and we will continue to demote these posts in News Feed.”

Encourage customers to follow your Facebook Page – Remind loyal followers about the “See First” option.

Facebook Advertising – Consider increasing your ad budget. Businesses must know how to target the right audiences to ensure their advertising dollars go further.

Make more Facebook Live videos – Videos are still favored under the new algorithm, but live videos will be even more important. In his announcement, Zuckerberg stated that “live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook—in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.” Creating live video or events or recurring series of how-to posts or news that addresses meaningful issues—anything that might lead to discussion and provide actual value to your prospects and customers—is the best strategy for having any organic reach (which has been steadily dwindling in favor of content boosting and ads anyway).

Invest time in Facebook Groups – From Facebook…“In Groups, people often interact around public content. Local businesses connect with their communities by posting relevant updates and creating events. And news can help start conversations on important issues.”

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