Big Changes Coming to Social Media’s Biggest Platform

Written by Social Summer Camp intern, Breanna Salinas.

Facebook recently announced big changes coming to user’s news feed after taking feedback from their consumers.

An outline of the major changes we’ll be seeing:

• Facebook’s news feed will favor users friends and family’s content over brand and publishers content.
• Last Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg shared a message with the Facebook community announcing the reasoning behind this change. Through feedback from the community, Zuckerberg learned that they were overwhelmed with content from businesses, brands and the media.
• The announcement comes a week after Zuckerberg shared on a post that he wanted to dedicate 2018 to fixing Facebook’s problems, including issues like “abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.”

What does this announcement mean for the users?

• Zuckerberg is pushing for personal interactions by showing more content from friends and family for a better Facebook experience.
• Facebook wants to reduce  “passive content” — videos and articles that don’t require the viewer to do more than just watch or read — so that users’ time on the site is well spent.
• Zuckerberg hopes that the changes will result in users having more meaningful interactions online through engaging or reading posts made by their friends or family.

What does this announcement mean for businesses and brands?

• This is good news for users that don’t like noise on their newsfeed. However, it’s a confusing time for marketers and advertisers who make content for brands and businesses.
• Pushing for “personal interactions” means content from brands, businesses and media will be shown a lot less on users’ news feeds.
• Brand content will not be completely eliminated if a brand already has a following or community. However, marketers will now have to find new ways to make personable and engaging interactions to be a part of a user’s Facebook experience.
• Facebook’s vice president of product management, John Hegeman, says that advertising will not be affected with Facebook’s new algorithm.
  • This won’t affect advertising, but we predict brands will have to boost posts more frequently for a higher price.
• Organic posts from brands, businesses or the media will most likely no longer be seen in users news feeds.
  • Businesses that rely on organic posts have to make the transition into promoting or boosting their posts in order to reach their audience or get engagement.
• Zuckerberg predicts that the changes will cause users to spend less time on Facebook. This might mean that users will be less likely to see ads if they are on the platform less. (Keep in mind this is only a prediction. We do not know how user time on the platform will be impacted.)

We’re are frequently learning new information as more news rolls out about Facebook’s announcement. Stay tuned for updates as more details about changes or news become available.