Facebook Overhauls News Feed, Demotes All Pages

Facebook has announced a major overhaul of its News Feed that it says will help in “bringing people closer together.” The changes, which effectively demote pages from musicians, labels and all businesses and brands, will roll out over the coming months.

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Facebook has announced a major revamp of its News Feed, that it says will bring people closer together and build relationships. "One of the ways we do this is by connecting people to meaningful posts from their friends and family in News Feed," the social media giant said in a post Thursday. "Over the next few months, we’ll be making updates to ranking so people have more opportunities to interact with the people they care about."

This is very bad news for musicians and music marketers.

This shift means users can can expect to see more from their friends, family and groups and less from business and brands, including musicians, record labels and concert venues. "Because space in News Feed is limited," writes Facebook, "showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses."

Ironically, the move comes just a Facebook is signing deals with labels and publishers that will enable them to make money when their music is used on the platform.

What if fans still want to see content from their favorite band or venue?

There is a workaround: "People who want to see more posts from Pages they follow can choose See First in News Feed Preferences to make sure they always see posts from their favorite Pages."

Posts that spark discussion also will receive preferential placements. But be careful: "Using 'engagement-bait' to goad people into commenting on posts is not a meaningful interaction, and we will continue to demote these posts in News Feed."

Are Pages Dead? No says Facebook: "This update is not the same as the recent tests where all Page content was moved to the Explore Tab. Page posts will still appear in News Feed, though there may be fewer of them."

The Solution?

We'll be reaching out to music marketing experts in the coming days for their ideas about how to survive in a post-Facebook world. (pun intended)