Did you hear?! Mr. Zuckerberg is going to ‘fix’ Facebook in 2018, most importantly its news feed. This announcement came after a disappointing year for Facebook in terms of use of the platform, even though both revenues and share prices continue to grow (until this news broke!). So what does this change actually mean for Facebook users and for us as marketers?
Basically, Facebook are going to return to what they originally stood for in the beginning by prioritising interaction between family and friends by reducing the amount of ‘public content’ served to users in their news feed. The goal of this change is to once again increase platform interaction and make Facebook the place for meaningful conversation amongst users.
That’s all well and good, but how will these changes impact us as marketers? Well, one major change could be reach, because if users are not engaging with your posts, those posts are less likely to be served and therefore seen. This could be counteracted by following Facebook’s advice to create more long-form video content which genuinely engages and encourages interaction, rather than tricking users into engaging.
There’s also the effect on paid advertising to consider. Whilst these changes won’t affect ad placements directly, we do need to recognise these three key aspects
- Relevancy score will play a big role. This is something we have focussed on increasing at Ayima for a while now for our clients, and it will become even more important with these changes. The more relevant your ad is to your audience, the more likely that users will engage with your brand.
- Don’t segment too much. By keeping your audiences broad and allowing Facebook’s algorithm to optimise towards the best performers, it will ensure that your ad is reaching the right users and not costing you a fortune to do so.
- Expect to see Facebook explore new ad placements to take the pressure off the news feed. Messenger has been experimented with for a while and it seems like the obvious place to increase focus on.
If nothing else, one thing is certain from this announcement: Facebook are taking back control. However, if you take a platform-first approach to creative and targeting, you will reap the benefits in the long run!
