They’ve gone and done it again. As sure as it is that the sun will set and birds will sing, Facebook have changed the game (yet again) and its players are the last to know.
But don’t lose hope and hang up your Facebook marketing gloves just yet, we’ve had a look into this algorithm change and what it means for you (if you want to know more, you can find Facebook’s full explanation here).
Basically, what we already know is that Facebook tries to populate an individual’s newsfeed with the things they think you want to see based on your engagement with similar posts, such as likes, clicks, shares and comments.
But marketers got savvy with this pretty quickly and what ensued was a barrage of ‘click-bait’ in order to get users to click the link – regardless of whether the link actually delivered what it promised or whether the click-er liked it, found it useful or was totally disappointed by it.
This new algorithm change is Facebook’s way of cracking down on click-bait because it is no longer assuming content is valuable just because it receives a high level of users engaging with it.
High engagement hasn’t always meant the content is interesting, of value or even something you necessarily want to see and, on the other hand, you might not have always engaged with all of the actual quality content that you do want to see more of because hey, who has time to like, comment and share all the great things they see each day.
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So, instead of using engagement algorithm to assume what we want, Facebook invested in some heavy-duty research and have amended the way they predict what we do and don’t want to see – regardless of whether or not it is something we will actively engage with.
Don’t fret – engagement still matters but so do a lot of other variables. And, as Facebook aren’t generous enough to tell us all exactly what that is, we found the Edgar team to have the best tactic to deal with this change: Post quality content.
Quality content is one of those things content marketers have been trying to get you commit to and invest in for the past few years, and now it’s all paying off.
According to Edgar, “Facebook’s new algorithms predict what users want in their feeds not just by monitoring engagement, but by going off what users actually tell them – so if you’re posting stuff that your followers actually like, you’re on the right track.”
Sounds pretty great if posting quality content is something you’ve been focused on in your social media and on your blog. If not, it’s time to start.
The best thing about this change is that hopefully Facebook will be guiding us towards people, places and publications that deserve our traffic, not those shady tricksters.
By simply making sure that you know your audience, your content speaks directly to them, is unique and interesting, you should be gifted with increased reach… But we’ll see.
For now, continue to create good content, share it with your people and, fingers crossed, it will be seen by the people you want to see it.