Facebook News Feed Has 7 Changes

CALIFORNIA: Last week I announced a major change to encourage meaningful social interactions with family and friends over passive consumption. As a result, you’ll see less public content, including news, video, and posts from brands. After this change, we expect news to make up roughly 4% of News Feed — down from roughly 5% today. This is a big change, but news will always be a critical way for people to start conversations on important topics.

Today I’m sharing our second major update this year: to make sure the news you see, while less overall, is high quality. I’ve asked our product teams to make sure we prioritize news that is trustworthy, informative, and local. And we’re starting next week with trusted sources.

There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today. Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them. That’s why it’s important that News Feed promotes high quality news that helps build a sense of common ground.

The hard question we’ve struggled with is how to decide what news sources are broadly trusted in a world with so much division. We could try to make that decision ourselves, but that’s not something we’re comfortable with. We considered asking outside experts, which would take the decision out of our hands but would likely not solve the objectivity problem. Or we could ask you — the community — and have your feedback determine the ranking.

We decided that having the community determine which sources are broadly trusted would be most objective.

Here’s how this will work. As part of our ongoing quality surveys, we will now ask people whether they’re familiar with a news source and, if so, whether they trust that source. The idea is that some news organizations are only trusted by their readers or watchers, and others are broadly trusted across society even by those who don’t follow them directly. (We eliminate from the sample those who aren’t familiar with a source, so the output is a ratio of those who trust the source to those who are familiar with it.)

This update will not change the amount of news you see on Facebook. It will only shift the balance of news you see towards sources that are determined to be trusted by the community.

My hope is that this update about trusted news and last week’s update about meaningful interactions will help make time on Facebook time well spent: where we’re strengthening our relationships, engaging in active conversations rather than passive consumption, and, when we read news, making sure it’s from high quality and trusted sources.

Use Videos/Facebook Live

I’m going blue in the face from saying this, but videos seem to be the way to reach the most amount of people.

Keeping in mind the “engagement bait” restrictions Facebook has also implemented in the past few weeks, views, and replays will matter – so make your videos meaningful.

I suggest live videos because you can get instant interaction from your followers, with the opportunity to get the word out about when your live video session will happen. Remember to ask your viewers to interact with you by posing open questions, or by submitting questions during the live feed.

Share Facebook Posts in Places Other than on Facebook

Speaking about getting the word out, one way to drive more traffic to your Facebook Page and beat the Facebook News Feed changes is simply to share your posts and Page on your other social media networks, blog posts, or even your email list.

‘See First’ Option

One tool Facebook has provided for fan pages is the “See First” option. When your followers activate this option they’re less likely to miss your age updates.

Ask followers to navigate to your Page, click on “Following” and then click on “See First”

Try Facebook Groups

In part of his statement on the coming changes, Zuckerberg noted that posts from friends, family and groups will take priority – so why not try creating an engaged Facebook group if it makes sense for your business.

Running a successful group takes time and effort, but can be a great way to build a true community around your business.

For example I have a group exclusively for members of my email list and resource library. In this group they can ask questions, get access to my posts as soon as they get published and more. In this upcoming year I’ll be working on creating more of a sense of community in there.

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Get Involved in the Community

If you read my blog, you know that I advise brick and mortar businesses to get into what’s happening in their communities. Not only does this offer location tagging opportunities, but it can make you an authority in your area, attracting local customers to seek your social media channels for info on local happenings.

If you aren’t a brick and mortar business, you can still keep an eye out with what’s happening in your city or even get behind a specific cause to connect on a deeper level with your audience.

Aim for Genuine Interactions
As always strive for genuine interaction to beat the Facebook News Feed changes.

I mentioned engagement bait earlier – this means posts that ask followers to like, comment or share on a post.

Instead, ask open-ended questions to get followers to interact.

Ask Your Audience
The easiest way to get more from your Facebook Page, and get into your followers News Feeds, is to simply ask them.

You can ask what they want to see, what content they like best, what their pain points are – then adjust your strategy to their answers.

I hope these ideas make you feel better about the upcoming Facebook News Feed Changes. As marketers we need to be prepared for an ever-changing landscape – it’s just the nature of our world.

If you have a good social media strategy, you shouldn’t have much to worry about – the shift just means we have to get more in touch with those we want to reach. Again look at these Facebook News Feed changes as a fun challenge and rise to the occasion.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg SocialMediaToday