New Year, New Algorithm for Facebook

By MICHELLE LONNEEDesign nerd & cat enthusiast.

SPONSOREDUpdated 8:08AM • 07/30/15

In an effort to protect its user experience, Facebook is tweaking its algorithm yet again to exclude any kind of promotional post from the News Feed. According to a press release, this includes: • Any posts that push people to buy a product or install an app. • Posts that push people to enter promotions or sweepstakes with no real context. • Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads. Not sure what that entails? Here are a couple examples provided by Facebook of posts that they consider promotional.

Facebook collected data from hundreds of thousands of people, asking how they felt about the content in their News Feeds. People told the social network they wanted to see more about their friends and pages they care about and less promotional content. That means that beginning January 2015, any post that falls under the above criteria will be blocked from News Feeds. Once again Facebook is forcing brands to be creative about how they reach their fans. Either they need to pay up for that exposure or create really compelling content that users can’t help but share. Facebook made sure to press that Pages are still an important part of a brand, with or without posts: “In October, for instance, nearly a billion people visited Facebook Pages. Of those visits, more than 750 million happened on mobile devices.” Though brands rely heavily on their posts showing up in their fans’ News Feeds, the Page itself isn’t a complete waste. Many brands use this free platform to field complaints and interact directly with fans. It’s also the first place a lot of people go for information on a brand; whether it is an address, hours or latest special. Facebook, although continually evolving, will continue to be a valuable asset for businesses. They’re just going to have to decide whether or not they’re going to pay to reach their fans or wait for the fans to come find them.