Many publishers and brands expect their Facebook reach to drop following a change to the network’s news feed algorithm. Facebook last week announced that it plans to adjust its algorithm to assign greater importance to posts from users’ friends and families and give less weight to publishers’ content. People will be more likely to see posts from brands if their friends shared the posts, not because they liked a company page.

Because many brands and publishers depend on Facebook for a sizeable portion of their referral traffic, the change substantially impacts their ability to reach audiences. Facebook itself said it expects reach and referral traffic to decline for many pages that gain traffic directly through page posts. The exact impact remains unclear and likely varies among publishers and brands. Publishers and brands that gain much of their referral traffic from people sharing their content will see less of drop.

More Entrainment, Less Serious Content

The news feed change will probably pressure publishers and brands to create more “shareable” content. Many media commentators warn that the news feed now favors entertainment-based stories over important but less exciting news stories.

“On its face, the move seems likely to favor buzzy, water-cooler chatter over, say, the often mundane proceedings of your state and local governments, or the policy discussions that will shape the future of the internet,” notes The Verge.

Facebook maintains it only wishes to give people what they want. “We are not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about,” states Adam Mosseri, Facebook vice president, product management, news feed, in a veiled reference to the controversy that it downplays conservative issues and viewpoints. “We are in the business of connecting people and ideas — and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful.”

How to Handle the New Facebook Algorithm

“Facebook legitimately does not want you to reach your audience organically – it’s time to accept that and plan accordingly,” writes Joao Romao, CEO at social media tool Getsocial.io, in a Business 2 Community article. “Your organic reach is minimal and if you want your content to be read, you’ll have to pay for it,” he says.

While the change in the news feed algorithm answers the desire of Facebook subscribers for greater focus on posts by friends and family, it also advances Facebook’s business model by driving brands to pay for advertising in order to reach subscribers.

A proper analysis of social sharing is essential for successful Facebook marketing and Romao recommends breaking down the analysis into four steps:

• Determine where your audience is sharing. Determine what social networks your audience is using to share Track your social sharing buttons to understand what’s driving your growth.
• How is your audience sharing your content? Track dark social to obtain a complete picture. Make sure you’re tracking copy/paste shares and attributing them to the right social channels.
• Determine the impact of your audience’s social sharing. Which social networks drive growth? Measure how much traffic and how many referrals each social channel generates.
• Find who shares your content. Influencer marketing can increase reach exponentially. The key is to seek influencers who can drive qualified traffic to your site, not to merely seek influencers with large number of followers. Determining who is sharing your content and the impact of their shares can help identify valuable influencers.

Optimize your social media content, he adds. Rather than posting articles on a Facebook page, and then blindly scheduling multiple reposts, think carefully about why you’re posting that specific story and what you want to accomplish. An analysis can help reveal the best stories to feature and promote.

“Mastering social sharing today is as important as SEO was for search 10 years ago,” Romao stresses.

Bottom Line: Many brands and publishes no doubt fear Facebook’s most recent change to its news feed algorithm that favors posts from users’ friends and family. However, Facebook marketers who properly track and measure their content stand a better chance of maintaining or increasing their reach on Facebook.

Glean.info grants permission to republish this article provided that the republished version contains a link to the original article on the Glean.info Blog.

William Comcowich

William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.