Could Facebooks’ new idea change magazine publishing?
The well-reported pressures of the social media age are finally showing signs of being confronted; however these changes look to be potentially damaging for Magazines. “In 2018, Facebook said it would reconfigure the types of posts it shows people in their personalised News Feed, emphasising messages from friends and family and downplaying less-meaningful content like posts from clickbait-heavy publishers and viral videos.” (Sloane 2019)
Facebook proposes changes to its like and comments system. Which is meant to be the first steps towards helping stop young adults from basing their self-worth on how many likes they have for their most recent post. The proposed changes mean that companies will be lower on a person’s feed than friends and family. With the idea of less visibility combined with no like counts, gives many companies concerns for the future use of Facebook as a marketing tool. “Today in a business context, Social media is achieving increasing importance as a channel for online consumer engagement.” (Kujur, Singh 2017) Which suggests that by restricting the visibility on one of the largest channels, there might be less engagement and interest.
These proposals may lead to broader impacts as if magazines cant see how well their products will be received. Magazines cant change their content and their marketing based off views and likes on social media platforms if these proposed changes go forward. Many marketing departments use the like and comment section to create a cost-effective marketing plan. Many magazines are also more reliant than ever on social media as a form of interaction as the sales of print magazines have slowly been dropping steadily for years. These potential changes to how magazines can use social media may have more significant consequences. As many magazines rely on trends and the idea that someone will like them because their friends and celebrities they like do.
There may also be a problem with the prediction of trends, “ Their concern is that the viewers are more inclined to hit the like button when they see others have already clicked” (Sloane 2019). The idea of liking what is popular is a trend within social media by removing viral videos, Like counts. Fewer people will be interested in the product as they can’t tell if it is popular or not.
The plans Facebook has for the future means that once again publishing companies have to change their marketing strategies. As if they can’t rely on just posting anymore, they will have to look for other ideas on how to get their product into the feeds of potential audiences. One such way to do this is using social media influences, a system which is already successfully implemented within Instagram and YouTube. “The advantage of this new electronic channel is that it can be used to communicate globally and to enrich marketing toward consumers at the personal level” (Kujur, Singh 2017), which consumers are more likely to do if they face a person they follow on social media then just a generic photo. Another future pathway could be to place more of a reliance on other forms of social media such a twitter Instagram and YouTube instead of Facebook. While these changes seem right for the fight against mental health, it may be detrimental to some magazines.
