The Changing Times of FacebookBefore writing about the latest changes and its impact on Facebook Brand Pages in particular,let us answer these questions for ourselves.What do we post these days on Facebook?- We hardly post any personal content. Instagram has taken that space in the last 20months or so when it comes to sharing personal visual stories.What are we doing on Facebook?- We are mostly sharing. We are sharing viral video content mostly, apart from the click-bait blogs and engagement bait contests to win prizes.
What else are we doing?- We are flaunting! The check-ins to ‘status-worthy’ places and travel stories and addingmajor life events such as change in job, engaged, married or arrival of a newborn.This clearly shows the latest ‘Passive Behavioural’ pattern of the Facebook audience. Theplatform is beginning to lose its sheen when it comes to relevancy in day to day affairs. Theaudience isn’t spending much time on Facebook due to irrelevant content in the news-feed andless posts from friends and family.
The new changes are just in tandem with Facebook’s visionsince its inception and it will only better Facebook as a marketing platform as well.”We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the peoplethat matter to us.” – Mark Zuckerberg (in his latest post)Coming to the point of the latest changes in the algorithm, here is all you need to know.(a) For Videos, Intent & Repeat ViewershipFacebook has accepted the huge trend of video consumption and is working on interfacechanges to make the video-viewing experience more user– friendly and relevant. The newchanges will show you the most relevant videos based on two factors,Intent:If people are going directly to your Facebook Brand Page to view your content or are searchingon Facebook for a particular video, this will get greater reach and distribution.
Repeat Viewership:If people are watching videos from the same publisher frequently that will get preference in thenew news feed.(b) Baits get DevaluedWe have to go back to the basics. Yes, content will be the King and the Queen. Facebook willcrackdown all kinds of engagement baits to bring down the massive clutter of pointless contestsand sweepstakes. So stop using, “like this if…” or “Tag that friend”or “Share this with a friend” toengage with the audience. Primarily avoid this five kinds of baiting,Tag BaitingShare BaitingVote BaitingComment BaitingReact BaitingAccording to Facebook,”To help us foster more authentic engagement, teams at Facebook have reviewed andcategorized hundreds of thousands of posts to inform a machine learning model that can detectdifferent types of engagement bait. Posts that use this tactic will be shown less in News Feed.
“(c) Low-Quality websites DevaluedAnother major challenge for Facebook is to crackdown the amount of ‘fake news’ generated anddistributed through it’s news- feed. Facebook has reviewed hundreds of thousands of pageslinked to the platform and developed characteristics that indicate the web-page is of low-valueand spammy content. Here’s what you have to do to ensure smooth traffic to your websites andlanding pages:1) Ensure the pages do not have disruptive, malicious content or shocking ads.2) Page loading speeds are up to the mark – slow loading pages will be affected.
3) Ensure the pages have substantive, topical and relevant content.4) Keep a check on the bounce rates and pages per session metrics.Even if these are testing and painful times for marketers, Facebook should be applauded forconstantly striving for a better user-experience. After all, Facebook is all about ‘discover,connect and stay connected!’We will talk about the action points for a ‘Social Media Marketer’ in this latest game-change inour next blog. The current scenario reminds me of the famous Bob Dylan song,”For the times, they are a changin.”‘
