Several months ago a friend of mine had a wonderful discovery. He realized that he could go back and find embarrassing photos that were posted on Facebook years ago, and by simply commenting on them the pictures would resurface to the top of the News Feed for his Facebook friends. This new feature, which inspired an equally gleeful and horrified reaction in those of us who still had documentation of our teen years on Facebook, was just one of the many recent changes to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm.
While Facebook’s News Feed algorithm changes can cause humorous reactions from users, for businesses who rely on organic reach generated by social media platforms such as Facebook, these changes can significantly impact marketing strategy.
Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is incredibly important. Facebook has thousands of posts available to each user every minute, but because of space it can only display some of them. It must prioritize what to post and where to put it on the News Feed based on data on both the post and the user. Some posts won’t be seen by users at all. This means that even if a brand has millions of fans, if its posts are not what the News Feed algorithm considers “quality,” they may reach as few as 2 percent of their fans for large brands, according to data gathered by social@Ogilvy . Its important to know what kind of content gets the top spot on the News Feed if you want to give your brand an edge up on the competition.
A Brief History
Over the past several years, Facebook has been constantly tweaking and restructuring its News Feed. Although the News Feed was originally organized chronologically, Facebook has consistently moved towards having a smart News Feed that sorts posts based on what users want to see.
Facebook first declared their intentions to have a News Feed based on popular content in 2007, when they introduced the “like” button. Two years later in 2009, Facebook attempted to let users filter their own News Feeds to have more control of the content they see on their News Feeds.
The first significant change to Facebook’s News Feed, however, came in October of 2009, when it introduced a modified algorithm that sorted posts based on popularity rather than chronology. This “Top News” feed used feedback such as comments and likes to sort posts on the News Feed, and contained more status updates and activity highlights. Users could still elect to continue to sort their feed chronologically in the “Recent News” tab.
Facebook’s News Feed algorithm took a turn for the more complicated when these two feeds were combined in 2011. This new algorithm, originally called EdgeRank, used a combination of user affinity, content weight, and time decay to determine the News Feed. Finally, in 2013 and into 2014, Facebook made several changes to its News Feed algorithm once again, attempting to emphasize quality content over spam. These changes, which I will discuss in detail below, can either help or hurt brands.
Understanding the Current News Feed Algorithm
Last month, Facebook revealed that the primary goal of their News Feed algorithm change was to reduce memes and other “spammy” content on the News Feed. If you’re wondering what Facebook considers “spammy,” you’re not alone. In this case, it refers to a broad range of posts including content that is like-inducing (tries to guilt or induce the viewer into giving the page more likes) and links that lead to a page full of ads, among other things. Although some users may miss their corgi memes, pages that urge you to “Like to End Poverty” were an annoyance I’m glad to see restricted.
Instead, Facebook wants to focus on quality posts, such as status updates and legitimate articles and links. One way it’s doing this is by allowing old stories that have already appeared on a person’s News Feed to reappear if they get additional likes and comments. For social users, this means scrambling to delete that one 5-year-old picture of your college spring break trip.
For businesses, this means that facilitating conversations and comments on posts is a must. If you can create content that encourages comments rather than just views, that content can reappear on fan’s feeds multiple times, which can drastically increase your reach.
In addition, Facebook is prioritizing content that contains link-sharing, and discouraging text-only posts from businesses. Link-share is when the preview of the link’s content appears below links when you post on your page. These links get more interactions than all-text posts, which has caused Facebook’s News Feed algorithm to deem them of higher quality.
Some of Facebook’s recent changes are aimed specifically at helping brands improve their reach. For example, as of February, if a brand tags another brand in a post, the content can reach fans of both brands on Facebook. This encourages collaboration between brands and allows some posts to have almost double the reach that they would without this feature.
Big Picture: The Decline of Organic Reach
Although Facebook’s News Feed algorithm changes contain many features that brands can use to boost their reach, the long-term trend is that organic reach on Facebook is dropping significantly. This is a result of a combination of News Feed algorithm changes and an increase in competition — as more brands move to Facebook, people like more companies, and there is less space on the News Feed to receive content from all of them.
In fact, according to a comprehensive study done by social@Ogilvy, organic reach on Facebook went from 16% in 2012 down to 6% in February 2014. Facebook pages with over 500,000 fans have significantly less organic reach as a percentage of their fans, with only 2 percent reach as of 2014. They predict that this trend will continue until organic reach is at almost zero.
This strategy makes sense for Facebook, as companies that have come to rely on social media marketing will spend increasing their budgetary spend on promoted posts. However, with careful marketing strategies it is possible to maintain a high reach without paying extra.
By crafting quality posts and focusing on engaging fans, brands can still garner significant organic reach on Facebook. However, it is important to continually adapt to the changing Facebook News Feed algorithm to get the most out of social media marketing.
Here are a few posting strategies to help you adapt to the new News Feed algorithm changes:
-
Interact more
One of the most difficult but important concepts to grasp when getting acquainted with social media marketing is that your page should be less like a billboard and more like a conversation between you and your fans. For example, Coca Cola’s Facebook page is filled equally with content and with requests for fans to send in pictures and videos. Interactive posts encourage more comments as well, which can boost your posts’ reach dramatically. In the above left example above, Honest Tea is creating content that fans will want to share, and on the right Coca-Cola is asking for fans to create content and send it in. Both are effective interaction strategies.
-
Don’t include calls to action
As tempting as it may be to ask fans to “like” a certain photo or post to show support, resist the urge. Facebook considers these posts to be spammy!
-
Use link share
Post lots of links, and when you do, make sure you include the preview! Facebook will prioritize these posts over text-heavy posts.
-
Post multiple pictures
It seems that under the new News Feed algorithm, posts that contain two or more photos get significantly more reach than those with only one photo. Take advantage of this! It’s a quick and easy way to expand your reach. -
Post at the right time
Don’t neglect the Facebook Insights page, which contains data on the time of day your fans are most online. Post in this time rang to optimize your reach.
-
Ferment your posting strategy
Randomly posting content whenever you have it will not be very ineffective. Post a lot and post consistently: people will only go to your page if they know that they can expect consistent content when they get there.
-
Use Global Pages
Take advantage of Facebook’s new “global pages” to customize your posts based on region. This allows you to post content that will be most relevant to your fan base and therefore garner more interactions.
PS. Do you know how effective your content is on social media? Download our Fortune 500 Instagram Report to see the effective data that we dug up on Instagram.