Here is a summary of the recent changes for publishers and the even more recently announced changes to Facebook videos:
One of the biggest changes, and the one likely to have the most impact on publisher reach is the prioritization of friend posts over publisher posts and interactions. This will primarily apply to friends that you already interact with on the site. As a Facebook user, you will probably like this a lot. As a business trying to market on Facebook, it means that your audience will see less posts related to your page and that could have a serious impact on your brand’s visibility.
Facebook is now allowing multiple posts in a row from the same publisher to show up in the news feed, which hasn’t been allowed up until now. This change is particularly impactful for those without much content in their feeds in the first place (not a lot of friends or pages that they interact with).
We will also be seeing less focus on what people do on Facebook – such as comments they make on someone else’s post, what they like, etc. While I’m still personally not seeing this change, as a Facebook user I can’t say I’ll be sad to see those notifications decline on my news feed. The downside is that as a brand, people will see less of the notifications that show someone liking your posts or pages too.
Today, Facebook announced a change in its video algorithm that takes into account actions such as adjusting the volume and going full screen. Facebook already keeps track of who likes to watch videos in its news feed, and shows them more videos higher up in their feed.
The difference here is it will show people more of what they want to see based even on videos that they don’t “like” or comment on. Aside from this sounding almost creepy, it could be a plus for your business if you post a lot of videos and there are people watching them but not interacting. Either way, you will have to watch and see whether it ends up showing your video more or less in the long run.
These are the most recent Facebook algorithm changes. Depending on your type of Facebook interactions and audience, you may be affected in different ways, whether with reduced reach or how much your videos are shown.
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