By now, we’re sure you’ve heard about Facebook’s plan to change their News Feed and, ultimately, the way users receive meaningful content within the social media giant’s platform. The news has many brands and publishers reeling, to say the least; our favorite apocalyptic nickname at the moment being “Facebook Zero”.
What the change is:
A focus on person-to-person engagement.
Facebook will, now more than ever, prioritize (and give relevance to) what content a user sees in their News Feed based on their individual behavior and engagements.
Facebook will also be prioritizing posts and interactions that have meaning to the individual user. See how the team at FB defines meaningful interactions below.
What it isn’t:
This change is not the creation of two separate News Feeds; one with friends & family updates and a separate one with brand pages updates. The News Feed appearance and operational functions will not change – you’ll simply notice less content from brands and publishers in your existing feed.
This change will not affect Instagram feeds, just Facebook.
It isn’t a change in advertising through Facebook. These changes directly affect organic social media posts only.
A few more things we’ve learned:
1. “Engagement Baiting” will be penalized. Engagement Baiting is the practice of “goading your audience into engaging through spammy posts on Facebook with likes, shares, comments, and other actions. For example, ‘LIKE this if you’re an Aries!’” Other baiting includes:
- Vote Baiting
- React Baiting
- Share Baiting
- Tag Baiting
- Comment Baiting
Note: there will not be any notification as to whether your content is being penalized or not, so be sure to consider language when asking your fans and followers to engage with your posts.
2. A “See First” opt-in is possible.
- Followers of your brand may opt-in to “see your content first” in their News Feeds should they want to.
- For travel and hospitality brands, this may mean that followers are considering your property and are shopping reviews, have already booked your hotel and are looking for tips & tricks, or – best case scenario – are a true brand advocate and looking for content they can share with their friends and families consistently.
