Internet marketers have long-known that to stay on top of the SEO battle, one must closely follow changes in algorithms from various search engines. Facebook is quickly adding itself in to that mix on the social media marketing scene. Over 100 different criteria make up Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, and with the thousands of possible posts each user has the possibility to consume daily, it is more important than ever for marketers to be tuned in to these tweaks and shifts.
Facebook recently announced various new updates to the newsfeed and other services, amongst many, these three are the top updates you should know.
1. No more “promotional” Facebook posts
After a recent survey of its users, Facebook discovered that many found the content from brand and business pages they had ‘Liked’ was overly promotion. This mainly occurs when the content includes traits that fall under the following categories: “Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app, ask people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context, and reuse the exact same content from ads” as stated in a recent Facebook News Release.
Due to the level of competitiveness for organic posts on Facebook, as of January 2015 this type of content will disappear from peoples news feed. However, this brings us to the next update.
2. Organic Facebook Interest Targeting
As a marketer who uses Facebook gratuitously, I find sometimes find myself feeling that Facebook is just in the game of making my job more difficult – this update could make me rethink that position.
Up until recently, organic posts could target an audience solely on Gender, Relationship Status, Educational Status, Age, Location, and Language. These definitely say something about a person, but not enough to create direct engagement. With these latest updates you are now able to target a specific audience based on interests.
This has endless application, especially for brands with a large, diverse following. Although reach may be slightly hindered by targeting a post to a segment of your audience, there is tremendous benefit in the ability to ensure your post will be relevant to those it reaches.
3. Increase of Facebook video reach in News Feed
Facebook recently surpassed YouTube in monthly desktop video views. This is primarily due to mobile uploads and the auto play feature in the newsfeed. Now, videos directly uploaded to Facebook can reach up to 30% more views as opposed to link posts of videos. This is mainly due to the higher video performance Facebook is offering to its users. With the new Video Views Objective, the video directly uploaded to Facebook will be systematically enhanced to reach member most likely to view it. Insight as to how to improve your video can be found in Ads Reporting under the Edit Columns.
About the : Erik Leist
