Facebook: 2018 Algorithm Changes

What it means for brands

by Samantha Vargas

Photo via yourdigitalresource.com

​Facebook announced the latest changes to it’s news feed algorithm on Jan 11.  The News Feed algorithm will begin to prioritize content from friends, family and groups over content from brand pages, businesses and media. Facebook calls this initiative “Closer Together”. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that the goal is to “help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us.” The change was sparked by recent feedback from the Facebook community that public content such as posts from businesses, brands and media were crowding the personal moments on their News Feed. Zuckerberg said, “the balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do – help us connect with each other.”

As a solution, over the next few months, Facebook will be making updates to rankings so people have more opportunities to interact with the people they care about. They will be prioritizing posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. What do these changes mean for your brand?
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Facebook’s Head of News Feed Adam Mosseri wrote in a Newsroom blog, “Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it.”
Here are some tips to help keep your brand alive on the News Feed.

1. Encourage your followers to like your Facebook page and choose See First in their News Feed Preferences
2. Post quality content that encourages meaningful interactions between people. Live videos are great for this!
3. Write about relevant and timely topics that your audiences are most likely to have an opinion on or something they really care about that are relevant to your brand.  Try including questions in your post.
4. Do not be tempted to post engagement baits asking your audience to tag your friend in the comments, comment an emoji if you laughed, etc. Mosseri clarified these are not meaningful interactions and will continue to be demoted on the News Feed.

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These tips will not only help improve your Facebook content strategy, but your content
strategy on every social media platform. Change can be intimidating but if you are dedicated to consistently providing quality content and actively engaging with your audience there is no reason to fear this algorithm change.