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Tag: news feed

  • Facebook Tests Splitting Its News Feed but Insists It Won’t Be Rolled Out Globally

    Facebook Tests Splitting Its News Feed but Insists It Won’t Be Rolled Out Globally

    Publishers and content creators may soon be facing a new challenge if they want to broaden or even maintain the organic reach of their Facebook posts. The Facebook is currently testing out new changes that will drastically alter the way its news feed works.

    And it may not be a good change for publishers at all, at least for those who rely on organic methods for their posts’ social media reach. Apparently, Facebook is testing out a new news feed algorithm which basically splits the news feed a user will see on his or her account upon opening it. The regular news feed will now only contain posts and updates made by Facebook friends or family members as well as paid advertisements. The rest of the posts, which will include all content that is not promoted on Facebook, will now be shown in a secondary post. Dubbed the Facebook Explore Feed, the move aims to enhance the visibility of promoted posts over those merely relying on organic reach.

    Thankfully, for now that is, the news feed algorithm is still being tested only in a handful of locations. The new feature is being rolled out to six countries including Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka, a testing phase that might take months to complete.

    While it still remains to be seen if the news feed algorithm will be rolled out system-wide, initial results from the test are a bit worrying for online publishers and content creators. Apparently, user engagement on Facebook pages where the test is being conducted alarmingly dropped down to between 60 to 80 percent, a trend that might put small publishers out of business if the news feed changes get implemented worldwide.

    The algorithm change seems to have affected publishers or ‘Buzzfeed-like’ sites which heavily rely on social media reach to drive traffic, according to Slovakian newspaper Dennik N journalist Filip Struhárik. On the other hand, larger sites were least affected due to their more diverse ways to secure readership.

    Reacting to some concerns raised about the possible implications of the dual-news feed system, Facebook recently clarified that the company does not plan to roll the test out globally. As Facebook puts it, “The goal of this test is to understand if people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content.” Apparently, the company does not want the public to interpret the dual-feed system as a way to force publishers to shell out some cash to buy their way back into the much-coveted Facebook News Feed.

    [Featured Image by Pixabay]

  • Facebook Explains How News Feed Works in This Talk From F8 [Video]

    Facebook Explains How News Feed Works in This Talk From F8 [Video]

    Facebook has been sharing some videos of discussions from last week’s F8 developer conference. You can find a handful of them on the Facebook for Developers page.

    When it comes to Facebook, obviously the big goal for many of us is to get in front of more people in the News Feed, so I figured you might be interested in this one.

    Adam Mosseri, VP of Product Management for News Feed talks about “getting your content to the right people,” how News Feed works, and what it means to publishers.

    Of course Facebook is constantly changing how News Feed works. Earlier this week even, they announced a couple of adjustments to take into account length of time it expects users to spend on content and diversity in pages users are seeing posts from. We have a post up about that here.

  • More Facebook News Feed Ranking Changes

    More Facebook News Feed Ranking Changes

    Facebook announced new changes to how it ranks content in the News Feed. For one, they’re giving more weight to the time a user spends viewing the content. The company says it has learned that the time people chose to spend reading or watching content they clicked on from the News Feed is an important signal that the story was interesting to them.

    This seems like something that would’ve been realized ages ago, but here we are. The signal actually predicts how long you will spend looking at an article in the mobile browser or an Instant Article after you have clicked through.

    “This update to ranking will take into account how likely you are to click on an article and then spend time reading it,” Facebook’s Moshe Blanks and Jie Xu say in a joint blog post. “We will not be counting loading time towards this — we will be taking into account time spent reading and watching once the content has fully loaded. We will also be looking at the time spent within a threshold so as not to accidentally treat longer articles preferentially.”

    Facebook believes the change will help it better understand which articles might be interesting to users based on how long they (and others) read them, so users will be more likely to see stories they’re interested in.

    The change only factors in the time people spend reading an article regardless of whether that time spent is reading an Instant Article or an article in the mobile web browser.

    Another change involves the diversity of page posts.

    “We’ve also heard from people that they enjoy reading articles from a wide range of publishers, and it can be repetitive if too many articles from the same source are back to back in their News Feed,” the Facebookers say. “We’ll also be making an update to reduce how often people see several posts in a row from the same source in their News Feed.”

    Facebook says the update has already begun rolling out, and that it will continue to do so over the coming weeks. Most pages won’t see significant changes, it says, while some may see minor increases or decreases in traffic.

    As usual, you’re encouraged to peruse the publishing best practices.

  • Why and How To Use Facebook Live As It Becomes A Ranking Signal

    Why and How To Use Facebook Live As It Becomes A Ranking Signal

    Last week, Facebook announced that it now takes live video into account when ranking content in the news feed. In other words, live video is now a bigger deal when it comes to getting in front of people on Facebook.

    Have you experimented with Facebook Live yet? Do you intend to use it to engage customers and followers? Discuss.

    In early December, Facebook began letting a small percentage of people in the U.S. stream live video from their iPhones. Later that month, they expanded this to all verified pages. In January, Facebook announced that the feature was rolling out to all U.S. iPhone users. Then, in early February, they opened up the functionality to the Pages Manager app for iPhone in the U.S.

    In late February, Facebook announced it would begin rolling out the ability for people on Android to share live video. This starts in the U.S. with more countries to follow. Now, Facebook is making all of this live video matter more by putting it higher in the priority list when it comes to what people see in their News Feeds.

    “As with any new type of content in News Feed, we are learning what signals help us show you the most relevant Facebook Live videos for you personally,” the company said in an announcement. “For example, a few years ago when more people began sharing and watching video on Facebook we listened to feedback to learn what signals helped us show people more of the videos they want to see and fewer of the videos they don’t. At first we updated News Feed ranking to take into account how many people watched a video and how long people watched for to help us personalize News Feed based on people’s preference for watching video. Over time we also learned that certain actions people take on a video, such as choosing to turn on sound or making the video full screen, are good signs they wanted to see that video, even if they didn’t choose to like it.”

    “Now that more and more people are watching Live videos, we are considering Live Videos as a new content type – different from normal videos – and learning how to rank them for people in News Feed,” Facebook added. “As a first step, we are making a small update to News Feed so that Facebook Live videos are more likely to appear higher in News Feed when those videos are actually live, compared to after they are no longer live. People spend more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video on average compared to a video that’s no longer live. This is because Facebook Live videos are more interesting in the moment than after the fact.”

    Facebook says it doesn’t expect Pages to see significant changes because of the update. This makes sense considering that most Pages can’t use the feature yet. Right now, it’s only available to users, verified Pages, and public figures using Mentions.

    If and when live video streaming does become available to all pages, this ranking signal will obviously matter a great deal more. Of course Pages are already competing for that News Feed real estate, and if they’re all given this feature and using live video, not much is going to change here. It will still just be one of many signals.

    Facebook prioritizing live videos would seemingly give it an edge up on Twitter’s Periscope app, which provides very similar functionality. Periscope, however isn’t limited to verified accounts.

    Brandlive recently polled businesses, finding that 44% had produced one or more live streaming videos in the last year, and that 20% intend to do so over the next year. Of those who plan on doing live streams over the coming year, most plan to do consumer panels, and the second biggest intended use case is virtual tours. 65% of those polled don’t currently have video production teams.

    Smart Facebook Live users will take advantage of the video content they’re creating and utilize it in other ways. DigiDay has a piece about TMZ’s use of the feature, which includes little live shows they do at different times of the week. They then re-use clips across platforms.

    According to the report, TMZ’s Facebook Live videos attract about 100,000 viewers. This has no doubt been helped not only by the new ranking signal, but the fact that Facebook has been giving users notifications of live video broadcasts. I’ve seen quite a few of these for TMZ specifically. Users will soon be able to turn all live video notifications off, however, so the effectiveness of that may soon wear off. DigiDay reports in a separate article:

    Make no mistake though. Facebook wants to push live video in front of users as much as it can get away with – hence the new ranking signal. The company is also reportedly looking to pay celebrities to use Facebook Live to make it grow more. According to Peter Kafka, Sheryl Sandberg herself has been reaching out to talent agencies about this.

    For now, the average business owner or marketer may not be able to take advantage of Facebook Live with their business page, but Facebook will undoubtedly open this up to you eventually. In the meantime, you can still use it through your personal account.

    Our friend Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith, whom we spoke with about utilizing various Facebook tools last year, appeared on a podcast on Friday to talk about Facebook Live.

    “What I love about it is that you already have your audience built in,” she said. “So whether you’re going to use the live streaming video feature on your personal profile or your Page, you have an audience.”

    “At the end of the day, it’s basically the ability to create more connection – a deeper connection – more intimacy, more authenticity, more of that human-to-human connection to really humanize or personalize your brand,” she said.

    Listen to the whole conversation here.

    Facebook itself offers 8 tips for using Facebook Live. These are:

    You can read what the company has to say about each of these as well as see some examples from successful broadcasts on this page at Facebook’s Media site.

    If you are already using Periscope or Meerkat, there will of course be plenty of overlap in the use cases between those services and Facebook Live.

    Do you intend to use Facebook Live for business purposes? Let us know in the comments.

  • Will This Get You Using Facebook’s New Publishing Option?

    Will This Get You Using Facebook’s New Publishing Option?

    Last month, everyone that publishes content on the Internet got some big news. Facebook said it would open up Instant Articles to all on April 12. This week, Facebook announced a WordPress plugin, which should make it much easier for many, many site and blog owners to implement.

    Do you publish with WordPress? Do you intend to take advantage of Facebook’s Instant Articles? Discuss.

    What Instant Articles Are

    Instant Articles first emerged about a year ago when Facebook let a handful of big publications like The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and National Geographic take advantage of testing the format, which involves Facebook hosting content to show to users in a quicker, more user-friendly manner on mobile devices.

    Using the same technology it uses to load photos and videos quickly in its mobile app, Facebook says Instant Articles load as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles. They also come with some content feature options like tilt-to-pan photos, auto-play videos, embedded audio captions, and interactive maps.

    What You Can Do With Instant Articles

    You can sell ads in their articles and keep the revenue and/or use Facebook’s Audience Network to monetize unsold inventory.

    When it comes to content and audience analytics, Instant Articles supports comScore attribution, and you can use their existing analytics systems or providers like Google Analytics or Omniture. The company is also in talks with European attribution and measurement providers.

    Facebook also lets you track reader-engagement with its own analytics tools. In addition to aggregate activity data, it provides info on article reach and engagement, time spent in each article, scroll-depth and engagement with rich media assets like photos and videos.

    Over the past year, Facebook has given more and more sites the ability to use Instant Articles, and the articles only recently became supported on Android alongside iOS.

    In a month, any content site big or small will be able to publish them.

    Screen Shot 2016-03-08 at 11.29.26 AM

    When Instant Articles opens up to all next month, those using standard WordPress templates will be able to activate the plugin to create Instant Articles.

    The plugin is open source, so the developer community will be able to participate in its continued development. WordPress discusses the plugin more here.

    Instant Articles Mean More Shares, What About Reach?

    According to Facebook, Instant Articles get more shares. Instant Articles product manager Michael Reckhow recently told Nieman Lab:

    It’s really early in terms of understanding how people interact with Instant Articles, and we’ll continue to learn a lot. But the first thing we’re seeing is that people are more likely to share these articles, compared to articles on the mobile web, because Instant Articles load faster; the majority load in under a second, and that means people are getting to the content immediately.

    We believe that sharing is the strongest signal that someone can give that it was a great experience. We’re really happy to see that improving the speed, improving the experience inside the article, is being reflected in more shares.

    According to Reckhow at the time, most of those using Instant Articles were planning to put their entire catalog or at least the majority of it on the platform.

    Facebook says using Instant Articles won’t directly help you in the News Feed ranking and organic reach, but you see what he said about sharing being the strongest signal, and Facebook does seem to favor Facebook videos over YouTube videos. Facebook would no doubt love to show more Facebook-hosted content.

    Are you going to try out Instant Articles? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • How Will Facebook Reactions Impact Pages And Reach?

    How Will Facebook Reactions Impact Pages And Reach?

    As previously reported, Facebook has finally launched Reactions globally. If you aren’t seeing them yet, you will very soon. Reactions are basically emoji that supplement the like button. Users can now not only “like” a post. They can express the following:

    reactions

    Users can choose from these when they hold down the like button on mobile or hover over it on desktop.

    Do you expect this to be a benefit or detriment to businesses? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Facebook says it has been conducting global research with focus groups and surveys to determine what types of reactions people would want to use most. They combined this with knowledge about how people already comment and post stickers and emoticons.

    The company has been testing Reactions with a few markets since last year, and says the feedback has so far been positive.

    Many businesses are no doubt wondering what this means for the content they post on their Pages and how it will impact reach in the News Feed. Facebook doesn’t really know how it will impact reach in the long run, but it stands to reason that the more of any of these emotions expressed, the more likely it will reach more people – at least for now. Engagement is engagement, and for now, Facebook will essentially treat any emotion expressed as a like. But that will probably change as time goes on.

    Product manager Sammi Krug explains that with News Feed, Facebook wants to “show you the stories that matter most to you. Initially, just as we do when someone likes a post, if someone uses a Reaction, we will infer they want to see more of that type of post. In the beginning, it won’t matter if someone likes, ‘wows’ or ‘sads’ a post — we will initially use any Reaction similar to a Like to infer that you want to see more of that type of content.”

    He says that over time Facebook hopes to learn how the different Reactions should be weighted differently by News Feed to do better at showing everyone the stories they most want to see.

    That’s probably the best way to go about it.

    The good news for businesses is that this range of emotions can help you analyze what your audience is responding to and how they’re responding to it. If you’re getting a lot of angry expressions, for example, you might want to make a change to your strategy (unless that’s what you’re going for).

    He says the feature can help businesses “better understand how people are responding to their content on Facebook,” adding, “Page owners will be able to see Reactions to all of their posts on Page insights. Reactions will have the same impact on ad delivery as likes.”

    He says they’ll learn from this rollout and use feedback to improve. “Overall, Pages should continue to post things that their audience finds meaningful and continue using our Page post best practices,” he says.

    In case you need a refresher on those best practices, they are:

    1. Post consistently.

    2. Target your posts.

    3. Keep post images and text fresh.

    4. Boost important posts.

    5. Publicize exclusive discounts and promotions with ads.

    6. Connect with words and images.

    7. Review post performance.

    You can see more explanation from Facebook about each of these here.

    With regard to targeting posts, Facebook recently added a helpful “audience optimization” tool to help you prioritize who should see a post first without limiting reach, which the previous post targeting feature did. You can target your “preferred audience” by interest, and those who fall into the categories you pick will be prioritized when Facebook determines who to show what.

    If you take advantage of this on a regular basis, hopefully you’ll see more of those heart/love reactions, which will undoubtedly be considered a hugely positive signal when Facebook does figure out how to weight each reaction in its ranking stew.

    Do you expect the reactions feature to benefit businesses? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Facebook Makes More News Feed Adjustments For Bad Connections

    Facebook Makes More News Feed Adjustments For Bad Connections

    Facebook announced some changes it has made to the News Feed to make it more efficient for showing relevant stories when you’re on a slow connection.

    For one, they’re testing an update in which they look at all previously downloaded stories on your phone that you haven’t viewed, and then rank those based on relevance when you’re on a poor connection. Previously, Facebook would just make you wait for stories to load.

    “We rank relevant, already downloaded stories upon startup of the app, when you navigate to News Feed from the app or pull down to refresh stories at the top of your feed, or as you are scrolling through your News Feed,” explains Facebook in a blog post. “We’re also testing improvements to keep these stories up to date throughout the day by periodically retrieving new stories when you have a good connection. This helps us make sure the stories we have available are the most relevant and current.”

    Another update allows you to comment on stories even when you don’t have a connection. You’ve already been able to like and share posts while offline, but now commenting will work too. Of course the comment won’t actually post until you do have a connection, so in more timely conversations, it still might not be an ideal situation.

    “For example, if you see a post about a friend’s engagement when you’re not connected to the internet, you can compose a congratulatory comment, and it will appear on his or her post when you’re back online,” Facebook says. “These changes will help anyone who is on a poor internet connection — even those whose network connectivity is generally good but who have intermittent connections in places like subways and tunnels, or at large events. None of these changes affect News Feed ranking. We are simply showing you the most relevant content as efficiently as possible. We’ll be testing and rolling this out over time to gather feedback.”

    Facebook made additional tweaks for slower connections back in October. At the time, it said it would start taking your connection speed into account, and prioritize which stories to load based on that as well as show previously loaded stories on poor connections.

    Image via Facebook

  • Next Facebook Hoax Might Not Spread As Far With New Facebook Ranking Update

    Next Facebook Hoax Might Not Spread As Far With New Facebook Ranking Update

    Facebook announced a new update to how it shows content in the News Feed that re-evaluates how it shows posts that are going viral. The idea behind the update appears to be to stop the spread of content that while it is going viral, a large number of people indicate that they don’t want to see it.

    Facebook software engineer Sami Tas and data scientist Ta Virot Chiraphadhanakul explain:

    Sometimes stories on Facebook go viral, where millions of people see the same video, photo, or other post. It’s hard to predict when or why posts go viral. Sometimes this happens because lots of people are really interested in seeing that particular post. However, sometimes a post goes viral and many people tell us that they weren’t interested in seeing it, despite lots of people liking, sharing and commenting on it.

    One example of a type of viral post that people report they don’t enjoy seeing in their News Feed are hoaxes. If there is a viral story about a hoax, it can get a lot of reshares and comments, which would normally help us infer it might be an interesting story. However, we’ve heard feedback that people don’t want to see these stories as much as other posts in their News Feed.

    Facebook surveys tens of thousands of people each day and asks people if they prefer a specific viral post over another post. The update means Facebook will use it a greater signal when a “significant amount” of people say they prefer the other posts.

    Hoaxes are just one example of where this update might make a difference, but are a common issue on the social network. If the update can help keep from spreading misinformation as much, it has to be a good thing.

  • Facebook Tweaks How It Shows News Feed Stories On Slower Connections

    Facebook Tweaks How It Shows News Feed Stories On Slower Connections

    Facebook announced some changes it has made to how it decides to show users content in the News Feed. These changes are specifically for users on slow connections.

    In a nutshell, News Feed will now take connection speed into account, prioritize which stories to load based on that, and show previously loaded stories instead of nothing at all on really poor connections.

    If you’re on a slower connection, Facebook may show you less video stories and more status updates and links. The company has developed an open-sourced Network Connection Class to determine how fast the user’s connection is, and with new updates, Facebook can start retrieving ore stories and photos while the user is reading News Feed on a slower connection. This ensures that stories are always available as the user scrolls.

    “If you are on a poor internet connection and your News Feed is loading slowly, we will first download the story you’re currently looking at, rather than download a series of News Feed stories,” explain Facebook’s Chris Marra and Alex Sourov. “For example, if you are looking at a photo your friend posted or a photo from a Page you’ve liked, that isn’t fully downloaded, we prioritize that photo over loading a story below it that you aren’t currently looking at, so you can see the most important photos you’re viewing as quickly as possible.”

    Facebook is now using a Progressive JPEG format for photos that enables it to start showing lower-quality images while the photo is still downloading. This way the user on a slow connection can see something rather than nothing. Facebook has actually been utilizing this on iOS for most of the year, but the capability has now come to Android.

    “Sometimes we are unable to load any new News Feed stories if a connection is particularly congested or poor quality,” Marra and Sourov say. “People have told us that when they visit News Feed they’d rather see stories that may have loaded on a previous visit than not see any stories at all. So now when you leave News Feed and then come back again on a bad connection, we will display previously downloaded stories. You can scroll down and see stories from your previous visit to News Feed until you are able to connect again to a mobile network. For example, if you were to open News Feed on an airplane you’d still be able to read stories you scrolled past previously, when you did have a connection, instead of just waiting for anything to load.”

    The changes should help any user suffering from annoying connection speeds, but are mainly geared toward emerging markets that are just coming online, often on 2G connections.

    Image via Facebook

  • Infographic Illustrates A Year’s Worth of Facebook News Feed Updates

    Every time Facebook makes an update to its News Feed, businesses get nervous because there’s always the chance the algorithm will start showing their posts to less people organically. This, as I’m sure you know, has been an ongoing issue for Facebook Pages in general over the past couple of years.

    Not all updates hurt all Pages. You’ve probably found some of them somewhat helpful. Even still, Facebook updates the News Feed algorithm fairly regularly, and it’s nearly impossible to feel completely at ease about it if you rely heavily on Facebook for web traffic.

    Pagemodo has a new infographic out (via Social Media Today) looking at the News Feed updates from the past year.

    news-feed

    Last August saw the click-bait update. Do you think it’s done a good job of weeding that stuff out of your News Feed?

    Then came the trending factors and the big one that a lot of businesses freaked out about – the one that demoted overly promotional posts. Then, they went so far as to prioritize updates from friends and family over Pages in general.

    Finally, this summer has seen increased attention to video actions and the ability for users to tell Feacebook when they want to see all posts from certain pages.

    You can take a look at our coverage of all these updates and more in our News Feed section here.

    Image via Pagemodo

  • Facebook Pages See Decreased Engagement [Report]

    Facebook Pages saw slight growth in organic likes in July, according to a report from Locowise, which studied 5,000 pages. Growth was 0.21% in July, which was up from 0.2% growth in May.

    page-likes

    “This number was at 0.1% for the largest pages, those with over 1 million page likes,” says Locowise’s Marko Saric. “Even the smallest pages, those with less than a thousand page likes, had a difficult time growing organically with a 0.3% growth of page likes. This confirms once again that Facebook is now a pay to play platform, especially if you’re looking into page growth.”

    The report also found that 54.05% of the largest pages use Facebook advertising.

    “41.12% of all pages we looked at in our study used Facebook ads paying for 28.56% of the total reach. This is a small decrease compared to 43.36% we saw using ads in the month of May,” adds Saric. “Facebook “54.05% of pages with over 1 million page likes used advertising, paying for 29.94% of their reach. This is a 12% increase compared to May where 48.28% of the largest pages were using ads.”

    Meanwhile, it finds that organic post reach and engagement rates are down with average post reach at 8.24% of the total page audience. That’s down from 8.34% in May. For the biggest pages it was 6.66% and for the smallest pages it was 13.85%.

    Average engagement rate was 6.27%, down 6% from May. For the biggest pages it was 6.73% but down 25% from May.

    As the report notes, the new “See First” feature recently announced by Facebook could help pages boost organic reach if they’re able to convince fans to enable it.

    Check out the report here. It gets more into Facebook’s video and ecommerce efforts in addition to more insights about the previously discussed topics.

    Last month, we looked at research from Adobe, which found that people are interacting more with links.

    Image via Locowise

  • Facebook Pages May Start Seeing More Hides In Their Insights

    Facebook announced a new tweak to its News Feed algorithm, which deals specifically with how people hide stories. Essentially, there are some people that hide a lot of stories. Most don’t hide many, but a small, unspecified amount of Facebook users hide a lot more than others. The update reflects this specific small group of users.

    Facebook explains in an announcement:

    Many people choose to hide stories they don’t like, but most people do this only occasionally. Hiding something is usually a strong indication that someone didn’t want to see a particular post. There is also a small group of people on Facebook who hide a very high number of stories in their News Feed. In fact, some people hide almost every post in their News Feed, even after they’ve liked or commented on posts. For this group of people, “hide” isn’t as strong a negative signal, and in fact they may still want to see similar stories to the ones they’ve hidden in the future.
    To do a better job of serving this small group, we made a small update to News Feed so that, for these people only, we don’t take “hide” into account as strongly as before. As a result, this group of people has started seeing more stories from the Pages and friends they are connected to than in the past. Overall, this tweak helps this group see more of the stuff they are interested in.

    Facebook says it doesn’t expect Pages to see any significant changes in distribution, but does say they may see an increase in the Hides metric in their Insights. This is because the small group of users who hide a lot of stories will start seeing more stories, which means they’ll probably continue to keep hiding a large percentage of them.

    Facebook does tell Pages on in their Insights that hides can decrease the number of people they reach, but from the sound of it, the new update won’t hurt you much in that department.

    Good news for Pages sharing a lot of content is that people are interacting with links more on Facebook, according to a recent study from Adobe.

    Image via Facebook

  • People Are Interacting With Links More On Facebook

    People Are Interacting With Links More On Facebook

    It looks like links are getting better for interactions on Facebook as interactions on other post types are on the decline.

    Have you seen better reach and/or interactions with your links than you were seeing in the past? Let us know in the comments.

    Adobe’s Social Intelligence Report looks at social media patterns throughout Q2. It finds that “recent algorithm changes” have led to declining interaction rates in all industries while interaction with links on Facebook continues to grow. Other post types are “slow to respond” to those changes, it says.

    Here’s what social interaction rate looks like by industry:

    Screen shot 2015-07-17 at 10.52.29 AM

    And social interaction rate by post type:

    As you can see, images are still getting the most interaction, but links are now on par with video in this area.

    Screen shot 2015-07-17 at 10.55.12 AM

    A couple months ago, we looked at a study from Simply Measured finding that Facebook status update engagement was down 72%.

    “Links and photos dominate when it comes to overall engagement, but video and photos are the post types to keep an eye on if you want your content to spread more widely on Facebook,” the report said. “Top brands are investing less in status updates and yielding less engagement from this type of post.”

    Media brands were most successful with links as a post type, it found.

    “Retail brands have experienced lower engagement quarter-over-quarter, but higher engagement year-over-year,” that report said. “Retail brands excel with links and videos, and eBay does especially well among its peers in this vertical. This vertical responds to fans the most.”

    Socialbakers found earlier this year that links were getting better average organic reach than photos, but not as much as status updates or video.

    Facebook is testing a feature with some Facebook Pages, which would make it easier for them to get a better read on what types of posts are working. This would be a “View Insights” button that appears on posts. It tells you how many people the post reached, how that compared to the average, and how many clicks it received. You can already see insights on posts in the current Insights tab for the page, but seeing it on each post should prove all the more helpful.

    Anther study we recently looked at found that Pages are seeing increased organic reach, which is certainly some welcome news after the last year or two. The data from Locowise, which analyzed 5,000 pages, found that the average reach per post for Pages had increased by 103% month-over-month. Here’s what page reach share looked like by post in that study. Links were just behind videos:

    Facebook has recently added some feature that could help links even more. For one, the new “add a link” feature encourages users to share links that are already on Facebook.

    Interest targeting lets Pages target their links to the people that will have the best chance of clicking them.

    Facebook is also giving users a way to prioritize certain friends and pages in their News Feeds. A Page that can convince users to prioritize their content has the potential to see a great deal of potential with the links they share.

    Check out Adobe’s full report here.

    Have you found links to be performing better than they used to? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Adobe, Socialbakers, Locowise, Facebook

  • Facebook Just Gave Pages a Path to Better Visibility

    For all intents and purposes, Facebook just gave users more control over what they see in the news feed than ever before. And with it, a pathway (albeit a tough one) for pages to reclaim some post visibility.

    For weeks now, Facebook’s been testing a feature that lets users pick and choose which friends and pages they most definitely want to see when they open up the news feed. Today, Facebook formally announced these updated controls, allowing users to prioritize who they see first at the top of their news feeds.

    “News Feed is a personalized stream of stories that you build from the people and Pages you’ve connected to on Facebook. The goal of News Feed is to show you the stories that matter most to you. To do this, we use ranking to order stories based on how interesting we believe they are to you: specifically, whom you tend to interact with, and what kinds of content you tend to like and comment on,” says Product Manager Jacob Frantz.

    “We’re always working to improve and personalize your News Feed experience. We know that ultimately you’re the only one who truly knows what is most meaningful to you and that is why we want to give you more ways to control what you see. Last year we announced some new ways to control what you see in News Feed. Today we are announcing even better tools for you to actively shape and improve the experience. We’ve redesigned and expanded Facebook’s News Feed Preferences to give you more control.”

    Have you been able to regain some reach as of late? Do you think pages can convince users to put them in their “see first” list? Let us know in the comments.

    That control comes in the form selecting which friends and pages you want to see before all others at the top of your news feed. If you go to your news feed preferences inside settings, you’ll see the option to “prioritize who to see first.” There, you can star both people and pages. From then on, you’ll see their new posts at the very top of your news feed when you open up Facebook. They’ll have a star next to them.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-09 at 9.08.50 AM

    The regular, algorithmically-driven news feed will pick back up once all the starred posts are exhausted.

    Facebook, always protective of its algorithm that takes into account likes, comments, and other interactions to show you what it thinks you want to see, is basically letting you bypass it.

    This is good news for users, and even better news for brands.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    Facebook can’t show you everything from every friend and page you follow. Anyone with a page knows that despite recent reports of a turnaround, overall Facebook’s organic reach has plummeted over the past year or so. For brands, competition for room in the crowded news feed is at an all-time high. Pages are lucky if they’re seeing post visibility in the teen%.

    Facebook does not filter posts from friends, however, and all you have to do to see every single thing every single friend posts is to scroll down far enough. Of course, that’s not really feasible, but at least the posts are there, on the news feed, if you really wanted to scroll forever.

    For pages, this isn’t the case. And we all know that as a page, posting can often feel like blowing smoke at a campfire.

    But this new feature lets you tell Facebook that you never, under any circumstances, want to miss a post by a specific person or page.

    This could be excellent news for pages, which continue to suffer with visibility. Recently, Facebook announced a tweak to News Feed that would show users more content from friends, and even less from pages. It’s hard out there for a page. If pages can convince users to put them in their “see first” lists, then they’ve found the Facebook holy grail – 100% visibility in someone’s news feed.

    Expect the please add us to your see first lists so you never miss a post pleas to start pouring out from pages. Users are limited to 30 friends or pages in their “see first” section, so it’s hyper-competitive. But if pages have the love of their Facebook fans and churn out content they actually can’t stand to miss, then it’s possible for pages to ensure their posts are at least seen.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    So, why is Facebook doing this?

    When you think about it, Facebook is giving users a way to avoid all the stuff they don’t really want to see – and of course that includes ads. Let’s say a Facebook user only really cared about a handful of people and pages – everything else is just noise to them. This new feature lets them sign on, check out the only stuff they really want to see, and sign off.

    “It sounds counterintuitive, but the worse we do on rankings, the more we make people try and scroll through, the more likely they are to just go away,” a Facebook spokesperson told Re/code. “If we show you the stuff you really really want first, you’ll come back more often.”

    So, Facebook’s theory is that if you get to see what you want in news feed, you’l like Facebook more. And if you like Facebook more, you’ll get on Facebook more.

    And if you’re thinking that Facebook is going to use this against users, and target ads based on who they prioritize – Facebook says that’s not the case.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    Motivations aside, this is all pretty good news for users and pages. The new set of news feed preferences also includes a “discover new pages” tool.

    “Helping you find new Pages to follow can help you connect with publishers, artists and businesses you might be interested in. Based on the types of Pages you’ve liked in the past, you can discover new Pages in order to get more of the stories you care about,” says Facebook.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-09 at 10.33.17 AM

    And there’s also a tool for “reconnecting” with friends and pages users unfollowed.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-09 at 10.32.26 AM

    Users should see all of these new options on iOS, and Facebook says it’s coming to desktop and Android soon. For pages, this is a tough way to try to regain reach, as it involves users actively deciding they want to put you in their favorites. But it’s something. And if you’re truly awesome, then why wouldn’t someone want to put you on their “see first” list?

    Do you think this new feature benefits pages? How do you plan to utilize it? Let us know in the comments.

  • This Feature Should Get People Watching A Lot More Video On Facebook

    Facebook is testing a new video feature, which would should help increase views on the desktop. It lets you pop a video out of your News Feed (or out of a Facebook Page) and continue watching while you scroll.

    Remember how awesome it was when YouTube finally started letting you continue watching videos on your mobile device while browsing the site for other things? It’s kind of like that, except on desktop.

    The feature was first reported by TheNextWeb, and while not all users are seeing it, I’ve found myself among the lucky few. Unfortunately, the feature does not appear on all Facebook videos. I am seeing it on those from Hamish & Andy, which is the same as what TNW reported on. In other words, go to that Page and check to see if you have it.

    popout

    popout2

    Once you’ve popped the video out, you can actually drag it around, which is pretty cool, although it would be nice if you could resize it as well.

    As you’re probably aware, Facebook is taking video a lot more seriously these days, and has been making significant moves to step up its game and take on YouTube in video ad dollars. This includes video ads within videos and revenue sharing. As much as video has already been growing on Facebook, it’s going to need to make sure people are keeping those videos playing, and this feature-in-testing is a pretty ideal way to do that.

    Of course as users elect to pop a video out and continue scrolling through their News Feeds, that means they’re not devoting their full attention to the video and almost certainly not to any potential ads that appear within. For that reason, the experience may not prove to be all that beneficial to advertisers relying ads within the videos themselves.

    For the time being, I’m only seeing this feature on desktop. As YouTube has already proven, it would make just as much sense on mobile.

  • Facebook Pages Are Seeing Increased Organic Reach

    I realize this isn’t the type of headline you’ve become accustomed to over he past year or two. Facebook Pages have by and large seen the organic reach of most of their posts fall considerably as competition for News Feed space has increased and Facebook itself has repeatedly adjusted its algorithm.

    How have your organic reach numbers been in the past month or two? Have you seen any improvement? Let us know.

    A new study, however, finds that he average reach per post for Pages has increased by 103% month-over-month. More interesting yet is that this has occurred while there has also been a 58% decrease in engagement per post.

    These numbers come from Locowise, which analyzed 5,000 pages and their growth, reach and engagement results in May.

    “The average reach per post for pages we looked at was at 8.34% of all page likes in the month of May. This is a 103% increase compared to the 4.11% in April, and is very positive news for brands struggling to reach their audience organically,” the report says. “The larger the page the less organic reach there is per post though. For pages with over 1,000,000 likes the average reach was 6.62% while for the smallest pages the reach was 14.88% of their audience.”

    “The reach per post may be up but the engagement per post is down,” it continues. “The average engagement per post was at 6.61% of people reached. This is a 58% decrease compared to the 15.58% engagement we saw in April. The largest pages (those with over 1 million likes) had an above-average engagement of 8.92% of people reached. This means that the average engagement per post is at 0.55% of all page likes, which again is poor compared to the 2.81% engagement of total following that we see on Instagram.”

    This certainly isn’t the first time in recent memory we’ve heard about how much better engagement has been for brands on Instagram compared to Facebook.

    The study found that Pages saw an 11% increase in Page likes from April to May. Over 43% of Pages are using Facebook ads. They’re effectively buying nearly 32% of their reach.

    “Brands are realising that paid advertising is a great solution for their goals of growing a page and reaching a new audience,” the report says. “This is actually a 503% increase compared to only 7.19% of pages we saw using ads in April.”

    Facebook announced in February that it had over two million active advertisers (here’s a look at some improvements it has made to its ad products on the way to that number). Just this week, it made its Ads Manager app available on Android, enabling many more of their advertisers to manage their ads from their mobile devices (it was previously available for iOS). This will likely only contribute to increased Facebook advertising.

    When it comes to organic reach, videos are reaching more users than any other type of post. In February, Socialbakers shared some data showing this:

    organic-reach_1502174

    If the Locowise study is any indication, videos are only doing better than they were then:

    resource-fb-may-reach

    It’s definitely worth comparing the other post types in these two charts. Status updates seem to not be going so far, while links appear to be doing better. Facebook recently launched an “Add a Link” feature, which will only encourage more link sharing.

    While videos may lead the pack in reach, they’re still not seeing the engagement of photos, according to the study, which have 7.06% of people reached engaging on average compared to videos at 6.61%. Links are at 4.37% with status updates at 3.34%.

    It’s worth noting that since the month when these numbers were collected, Facebook has announced that it will begin taking some other things into account when ranking content in News Feed. These include the time people spend on posts and specific video actions, such as unmuting and enabling HD.

    Have you seen increased organic reach on your posts? Have you increased your Facebook advertising efforts? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Facebook, Socialbakers, Locowise

  • Facebook News Feed Ranking Now Takes These Video Actions Into Account

    Facebook announced a new change to how it shows content in News Feed on Monday. It will now start taking into account the actions users take on videos when determining when to show a video to people.

    Specifically, it will look at when users choose to turn on sound, make a video full screen, or enable high definition. The thinking is that even if a user doesn’t like, share, or comment on a video, actions such as these are a good indication that the video is of interest to them.

    “We have previously made updates to News Feed that take into account whether someone has watched a video and for how long they watched it, so people who tend to watch videos in News Feed will see more videos higher up in their News Feed, and people who watch fewer videos will see videos further down,” Facebook engineers Meihong Wang and Yue Zhuo say in a joint blog post. “With this update, we want to show people more of the types of videos they want to see, and fewer of the videos they don’t.”

    “Many people have told us that they enjoy watching videos in News Feed but don’t always feel inclined to like, comment or share them,” they add. “For example, you may have found a video from a nonprofit you follow on Facebook to be really informative and you’re glad you saw it but it’s not something you felt inclined to like, comment on or share more broadly.”

    Long stor short, if you take any of the actions on a video as described above, Facebook is more likely to show you similar types of videos higher up in your News Feed going forward.

    The change has begun rolling out, and will continue to do so over the coming weeks. The company says it doesn’t expect Pages to see significant changes in distribution because of the update.

    Last week, Facebook announced the addition of a new Videos tab to Page Insights, enabling Page admins to see views and 30-second views at the Page level, top videos within a certain date range, and metrics for videos shared from other Pages.

    Two weeks ago, Facebook announced a News Feed change that takes into account how long users look at a story.

  • Facebook Might Give Users More Control over News Feed

    Facebook is still testing ways to let users prioritize particular friends and pages in their news feed – something that could be good news for all the pages out there that continue to suffer from reach issues.

    TechCrunch spotted a new test feature called ‘See First’ which allows users to designate certain people and pages to “see first” on top of their news feed.

    Users would be able to select one of three news feed visibility options for friends and pages – unfollow, default, or See First. If See First is selected, that person or page’s new content will always appear at the top of your news feed.

    Facebook gave this statement:

    “We are always exploring new ways to improve the Facebook experience, and are currently running a small test of a feature that lets you indicate that you’d like to see posts from a specific person or Page at the top of your News Feed.”

    This new test is just a tweak on another test Facebook ran back in April. A few months ago, the company prompted users atop their news feeds to “pick friends and pages and see their posts at the top of News Feed.” Facebook advertised it as a way to “see more of what you love.”

    Of course, we talked about how this could be very, very good for pages:

    Facebook can’t show you everything from every friend and page you follow. Anyone with a page knows how Facebook’s organic reach has plummeted over the past year or so. Facebook says that it does not filter posts from friends, however, and all you have to do to see every single thing every single friend posts is to scroll down far enough.

     

    Of course, that’s not really feasible. Facebook’s algorithms, which weigh the importance of posts on a variety of factors, should take into account how close you are to said person (through interactions) when sorting your News Feed.

     

    But this would be one surefire way to tell Facebook that you never, under any circumstances, want to miss a post by a specific person or page.

     

    Facebook already does something like this for friends. You can still add friends to a “close friends” list, “to see more of them in your News Feed and get notified each time they post.” The notifications are optional.

     

    But this could be really good news for pages, who continue to suffer with visibility. Recently, Facebook announced a tweak to News Feed that would show users more content from friends, and even less from pages.

     

    But if Facebook allows people to designate pages whose content they under no circumstances want to miss, it could help those pages, at least in theory, get more reach.

    Facebook appears to be testing multiple ways to give user more control over their news feed. If Facebook does indeed roll this feature out wide, pages will need to make sure their content is awesome enough that people will want to designate it at “See First”.

  • Facebook Is Rolling Out Another News Feed Algorithm Change

    Facebook announced that it’s rolling out another change to its News Feed algorithm that takes into account the time users spend on stories.

    Long story short, if users spend more time looking at a post, Facebook is going to assume that such a post is of interest. In other words, it’s not just about the liking, commenting, and sharing of the post.

    “There are times when, for example, people want to see information about a serious current event, but don’t necessarily want to like or comment on it,” Facebook says in a blog post. “Based on this finding, we are updating News Feed’s ranking to factor in a new signal—how much time you spend viewing a story in your News Feed.”

    “When talking to people about the way they use their News Feed, we’ve found that it’s not as simple as just measuring the number of seconds you spend on each story to understand if that piece of content resonated with you. Some people may spend ten seconds on a story because they really enjoy it, while others may spend ten seconds on a story because they have a slow internet connection. We’ve discovered that if people spend significantly more time on a particular story in News Feed than the majority of other stories they look at, this is a good sign that content was relevant to them.”

    “For example, you may scroll quickly through your News Feed and like a photo of your friend’s graduation, followed by sharing a funny post from your sister,” the company continues. “You keep scrolling and happen upon a post your cousin shared detailing everything she did and saw on her recent trip. Her post even includes a photo. You spend time reading her post and the interesting discussion about the best places to eat that had broken out in the comments on this post, but you don’t feel inclined to like or comment on it yourself. Based on the fact that you didn’t scroll straight past this post and it was on the screen for more time than other posts that were in your News Feed, we infer that it was something you found interesting and we may start to surface more posts like that higher up in your News Feed in the future.

    The change is already rolling out, but it will take weeks to complete. The good news for Pages worried about taking a major blow to their reach is that Facebook says it doesn’t expect Pages to see significant changes in distribution. I guess that’s bad news (or at least non-news) for those hoping to get more distribution for their insightful content.

    Image via The Official Grumpy Cat (Facebook)

  • Facebook Users Celebrate Animated GIF Support

    In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is at long last supporting animated gifs, at least partially. Users can post them, but the feature is still not supported by Pages for some reason. Either way, users are thrilled:

    Welcome to Facebook, Gifs.

    Posted by Mike Jacobson on Friday, May 29, 2015

    Facebook supports GIFs?!

    Posted by Andrew Gifford on Friday, May 29, 2015

    GIFs on Facebook? Yup.

    Posted by Clare Healy on Friday, May 29, 2015

    GIFs no Facebook.

    Posted by Felipe Kenji Yamauchi on Friday, May 29, 2015

    Finally, gifs on Facebook.

    Posted by Cody Andrus on Friday, May 29, 2015

    FACEBOOK HAS GIFS NOW. (FOR REAL THIS TIME)

    Posted by Joel Pavelski on Friday, May 29, 2015

    OMG! Facebook + embedded Gifs?!

    Posted by Jeremy Barnes on Friday, May 29, 2015

    Facebook supports GIFs now. bout damn time!

    Posted by Caleb J. Matos on Friday, May 29, 2015

    Facebook gifs!

    Posted by Roberto Max Salas on Friday, May 29, 2015

    Gifs on Facebook?!?

    Posted by Nando Rossi on Friday, May 29, 2015

    To post one, just post the image link, and it will automatically display the animation. Pretty simple.

    Expect to start seeing a whole lot of these in your News Feed. Have fun.

  • Facebook Is Making Events More Prominent

    Facebook Is Making Events More Prominent

    One of the most useful features of Facebook has always been Events. Even if you’re not the type of person to spend hours scrolling through the News Feed, commenting on posts, and liking baby photos – you probably use Facebook to keep track of upcoming events.

    Well, if you’re a fan of managing events on Facebook, good news. Apparently, Events are about to become a bigger part of the Facebook experience.

    Facebook Events product manager Aditya Koolwal shared a handful of upcoming tweaks to Events with Mashable – and the main takeaway is that Facebook wants more people RSVPing to events on the site.

    According to Koolwal, you can expect to see more stories about friends attending events in your News Feed.

    Not only that, but there will soon be a new drop-down list of “related events” that pops up in your News Feed when you join an event.

    Facebook is also integrating events with Messenger. Facebook’s trying to do quite a bit with Messenger these days.

    It’s already possible for event hosts to initiate a group chat with guests, but the Events team wants to take it further, enabling a quick tap or two for easy one-to-one chats in Messenger between an event host and someone they have invited.

    Koolwal also wants to make it easier for users to share an event with a person they’re messaging without leaving the Messenger app itself, an experience he compares to say, sending an attachment, but in this case, the attachment would be an event instead of a photo or audio file.

    Apart from just making Event more prominent, Facebook is actually gearing up to tweak the way the feature works. At some point (by next year), Facebook wants to make it easier to invite people to events – even non Facebook users. In the future, people might be able to join Facebook events without having an account (via email?).

    Oh, and there might be a standalone Events app at some point. Because of course there might be.