How Facebook’s Algorithm Update Will Affect You

As many are now aware, Facebook is rolling out a massive change to its newsfeed algorithm intended to favor posts from friends over public content and advertisements. Here we look at how this shift could affect you and your band page, and what you do to counteract it.

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Guest post by Ta'Rikah Jones of the Symphonic Blog

Bye bye fake news, hello meaningful content!

Facebook is rolling out a huge change to its News Feed algorithm. The update will prioritize friends and posts that spark engagement at the expense of public content, news outlets, ads, and the total time spent on the network. The network was created to bring people closer and build relationships.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook:

“I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”  

So, what exactly is the update?

Facebook will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about and show those posts higher in your feed. You know when see those pesky ads that aren’t relevant to you but you never see posts about your friend’s gig? That’s about to change. Facebook wants to inspire more back-and-forth discussions in the comments while also showing you content that you will ACTUALLY want to share and react to. Posts from your friends and family that adhere to their News Feed values will be given higher priority.

News content on the News Feed is expected to decrease by 4%.

What does this mean for Pages and public content?

As Facebook rolls out this update, Pages may see their reach, video watch time, and referral traffic decrease. This will be driven by factors such as the type of content being produced and how people interact with it. Pages creating posts that people don’t react to or comment on will see the biggest decreases in distribution.

People will still be able to see more posts from Pages they follow as long as they choose See First in News Feed Preferences.

Don’t worry, Facebook isn’t going to hide your Page content from the News Feed like they did in previous tests. Page posts will still appear in News Feeds but there will be a fewer amount of them.

What can you do to combat this?

If you have a Page, it’s time to put together a content strategy that actually prompts conversations between friends. Live videos are a great way to generate conversations. According to Facebook’s Newsroom, live videos get an average of six times as many interactions as regular videos. Stay away from using “engagement-bait” to trick people into commenting on posts as Facebook will continue to demote these posts in the News Feed.

Stay up to date with Symphonic on Facebook:

We post a lot of useful content on our Facebook, alongside awesome music from record labels and artists that we represent. We want to make sure that you are still up to date with all of the latest going-on’s so we recommend the following steps.

1. Click the drop-down arrow on the toolbar near the notification button.

2. This will pull up the preferences page, hit “Prioritize who to see first”.

3. Once you’ve selected that, click “Pages only” from the grey box and select Symphonic Distribution as well as any other pages you’d like to keep updated on.

We and other pages you have selected will now be given priority in your News Feed.