Facebook product manager Max Eulenstein and user experience researcher Lauren Scissors announced that the News Feed has been updated to show you content that matters to you the most. Eulenstein and Scissors said that the News Feed will give you a balanced mix of updates from friends and public figures, publishers, businesses and community organizations. However, the balance will be different for everyone depending on what people are interested in learning every day.
Facebook said it will be making three updates to its News Feed algorithms:
- The first update will improve the experience for people who do not have a lot of content available to see. Previously, there was a rule that you would not see multiple posts from the same source in a row. But Facebook is now "relaxing" that rule.
- The second update ensures that the content that is posted by the friends that you care about -- which includes photos, videos, links and status updates -- will be higher in the News Feed so that you are less likely to miss it. If you enjoy interacting with Facebook Pages that you have "liked," then you will still see that content. Facebook said it will try to strike the right balance of content for each user.
- The third update is in regards to the interactions that your friends have with a post. Many people have complained about seeing stories about their friends liking or commenting on a post so those stories will be placed lower in the News Feed or not at all. This is an example of a post that you will see less of:
You will see less of these types of posts as part of the Facebook News Feed algorithm changes /... [+]
How will this affect your Facebook Pages? Facebook said that the distribution will vary depending on your audience and posting activity. For example, the post reach and referral traffic may decline if there are limited interactions. Facebook Pages should continue to post content that the audience finds “meaningful” based on Facebook’s best practices.
Fortunately for brands, Facebook said that referral traffic to media publishers have more than doubled in the past 18 months. “We’re always looking for ways to optimize how content is discovered and consumed. Media content is a key part of the experience for people on Facebook and we’re committed to helping publishers find the right audience for their content,” said Facebook in a news post.
To prevent spam from spreading, Facebook started to demote content with “click-bait” headlines last year. Click-baiting is when a publisher posts links with headlines that encourages people to click on the content without offering much information about what the user will view. About a month later, Facebook said that it will be surfacing timely stories to the top of the News Feed. After those changes were implemented, several publishers complained about a drop in organic reach.
Facebook chief executive officer and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg hosted the company’s first town hall question-and-answer session in November 2014, which is when he was asked why Facebook Pages were seeing a decrease in organic traffic. Zuckerberg said “as time goes on, people are just sharing more things on Facebook. So each person who is consuming content in their News Feed — they might read 100 stories from their friends and Pages a day. And as their friends share more content and as they follow more Pages and as those Pages share more content, there’s just more competition.” At that time, an average of 1,500 stories were floating through the News Feed of each user. Each user is seeing an average of about 100 of those stories per day, which are controlled by engagement algorithms. Only the highest quality content appears at the top.
Facebook has over 1.4 billion users so publishers largely depend on the referral traffic from the social network. Facebook is also the primary source of news consumption for younger audiences, which is why publishers are forced to adapt to News Feed changes. Facebook generates a majority of its revenue through advertising, which includes sponsored posts from brands that want to receive additional traffic. Ultimately, Facebook's users control what they want to see on their News Feed by adding friends, “liking” Pages and engaging with the content.
What are your thoughts about Facebook choosing to show more content from your friends towards the top of the News Feed? Let us know in the comments section!
