Facebook seems to always be in the news. Most recently it has come under fire for how it spreads news, violence, division and even fake news. Facebook has a lot of influence, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to realize that with power comes responsibility. He must be a Spiderman fan…
Anyway, earlier this month, Facebook announced that they were making major changes to the Facebook News Feed in an attempt to combat some of these allegations. Whether these changes, and other changes announced just last week, will be effective, I can’t say. But what we do know is that they will impact businesses.
Facebook will now show users more content from family and friends and less from public content. This means that posts from companies, brands and media will get less screen time. According to Facebook, this change is a result of public content “crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
Anyone who uses Facebook to drive traffic to their website or as a form of organic marketing can expect to see a dip in their reach. So, if you spend lots of time and resources creating content for Facebook you may want to hit the pause button. Now, you’ll probably need to pay for that content to get the same kind of exposure.
While my hope is that these changes may result in a more positive experience for Facebook users, the marketer in me shakes my head as more businesses are forced to pay-to-play in the Facebook environment.
“Spiderman” flickr photo by CZMJ https://flickr.com/photos/czmj/3523440998 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
