How can publishers outfox the Facebook’s feeds Algorithm Changes
Recently Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook news feed ranking algorithm is changing. No matter what he has in mind — a sincere care and desire to connect people or thirst for profit, the amount of content distribution for publishers is doomed to drop off.
Zuckerberg believes that the posts of brands, businesses and media are ‘passively consumed” and don’t serve to increase meaningful social interactions (and Facebook users’ well-being).
Currently, the news feed algorithm takes into account likes, shares, comments, the amount of time a user spends on a post and other factors.
What is going to change?
They will prioritize the posts that stimulate discussions and comments (but only naturally — goading people into interactions will be detected and penalized). Live videos get a boost and have preference over regular ones. In general, a significant decrease in organic reach for companies’ pages are expected. As for news, it’s share is predicted to go down to roughly 4% from roughly 5% of News Feed today. Also, the news posts will be ranked by authenticity and informativity. It will take several months to implement changes.
How to respond?
Prepare significant content
The rule stands. However, from now on your posts must not only contain relevant information but also inspire users to react, discuss, interact, share their thoughts.
The content has to be authentic. Social giant takes steps against fake news.
Don’t use phrases openly urging people to comment (such as “Comment this if you love summer”) — Facebook will fight this tactic (called engagement-bait)
It is rewarding to create location-targeted content, for example, posts about local events of the brands.
Post live video
Facebook gives live videos preference over pre-recorded ones. Adam Mosseri, Head of Facebook news feed claims that live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.
Work with influencers and celebrities
Find advocates who will promote your content. Not only opinion leaders but also your loyal customers, partners and even company employees can influence the popularity and ranking of a page and its posts.
Increase your Facebook advertising budget
New algorithm doesn’t affect paid posts.
Interact with users on Messenger
On Facebook messaging app, you can effectively communicate with users via chatbot: answer FAQ, send news and updates, gather feedback, offer users to share your messages or the whole bot.
Messenger marketing for media: temporary hype or the future of digital marketing
The first five points are obvious and widely commented but messenger marketing is a new trend evoking positive feedback. So we suggest taking a closer look at content distribution in messaging apps.
Back in 2015 messaging apps have surpassed social networks in number of monthly active users. Zuckerberg’s ambitions constantly complicate life for SMM and marketing experts, especially for those who work for media.
Modest or nonexistent ad budgets make publishers search for other ways of content distribution.
Conversions from email marketing drop down. But broadcasting on messaging apps shows stunning results: up to 99% of delivered messages and 30–60% CTR. Have you recently received such results using other instruments? There are 4.2 billion users of messaging apps in the world. No doubt there are your prospects and readers among them!
Moreover, the communication with your reader in messengers is more intimate and friendly than everywhere else. There can be no complaints about “passive consumption” of content as a user anyway actively interacts with the web platform becoming a loyal reader. On a messenger chatbot, you don’t have to compete with the posts of your reader’s friends and family, and content of other news distributors.
Convert one-time visitors to loyal readers, retain them and engage them using new instruments for the creation of chatbots and systems of messenger broadcasting. It is the easiest way to bypass difficulties that news feed algorithm change will cause.
p.s. I’m PublyBot marketing manager. It is management system of broadcastings in messenger apps. My team helps publishers to grow their audience, build their own chatbots in messengers without programming skills, get new channels of content distribution and monetize them. If you ever want to chat, follow me on Facebook.
