Marketers still spending digital ad dollars or otherwise promoting their Facebook pages to secure more likes or follows may want to take a step back and rethink their strategy.
Facebook this week announced a new change to its news feed algorithm that looks to result in lesser posts, photos and videos from brands and media companies that you follow on Facebook from showing up.
Putting friends and family first
“To help make sure you don’t miss the friends and family posts you are likely to care about, we put those posts toward the top of your News Feed,” noted Adam Mosseri, the vice president of product management.
“If you tend to like photos from your sister, we’ll start putting her posts closer to the top of your feed so you won’t miss what she posted while you were away,” he wrote.
Mosseri went on to explain that Facebook will focus on users’ expectations of being informed and entertained by their news feed, it is clear that priority will be given to content either created by, or shared by actual users.
While not explicitly mentioned, what this means is that organic posts by brands can now expect to see less traction – if users even see it at all. Indeed, reports on The New York Times and The Guardian were quick to point out that the latest change is really bad news for media companies.
“[When] you log onto Facebook, every post you see is the result of a decision made by a person employed at a company that posted $5.38bn in revenue in the first quarter of this year. A person who is likely concerned with their company’s bottom line,” summed up Alexis Sobel Fitts in his report on The Guardian. Incidentally, Southeast Asia is the fastest growing region for Facebook.
So what’s next?
For now, it remains to be seen how severe the latest change will impact brand pages on Facebook. However, it is arguable that the reach of the average brand page today is already far less than a few years ago though – even before this latest update.
This means that brands will do well not to view social media as an end by itself, but merely a mean to an end. As pointed out by senior analyst Clement Teo earlier this year, companies need to become customer-obsessed to compete successfully in our customer-driven era.
One way to do that is to interact and engage with customers on the social media channels that they are already using. This will likely vary across markets, and require some experimentation that should ideally be backed by data.
Ultimately, if all you’re doing at the moment is trying to garner more mentions and posting inane updates on your brand’s Facebook page, it is probably time to move on.