New Facebook Changes

Facebook is preparing another tweak to the news feed. This change will affect what news and updates you see in your timeline. If you've have been affected by previous algorithm updates, it makes sense that this new one might make you a little bit nervous. But I'm actually really excited about this new update!


Directly from Facebook:

"The goal of News Feed is to show you the content that matters to you. The actions people take on Facebook—liking, commenting or sharing a post—are historically some of the main factors we’ve considered to determine what to show at the top of your News Feed. But these factors don’t always tell us the whole story of what is most meaningful to you. Recently, as part of our ongoing effort to improve News Feed, we asked people to rate their experience and tell us how we can improve the content they see when they check Facebook.

From this research, we learned that in many cases, just because someone didn’t like, comment or share a story in their News Feed doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful to them. 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. 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."


What I find fascinating about this, and it even made it into a talk I gave this week, is that search engine algorithms depend on us. The machines learn from us. (Which is so very Terminator, but I still think it is neat).

Facebook observes their users to determine how we search, use, and view content. So, when you are creating content, approach it from a human perspective instead of a sales perspective. I think one of the ways small businesses can take advantage of this new change is to work even harder to provide good, relevant, interesting content.

Does this new algorithm change affect any advice I've given in the past? Nope. Because I want you to focus on your people, not trying to game a computer program. Because you can't. Not really. The same thing I've always said still applies - be interesting, be engaging, and focus on the real people sitting behind the screen.

And if you really don't like Facebook (or other social media) or don't "get it", but you want to use it for your business, please do one of three things:

• Find a way to connect with it. Spend time looking at similar businesses and observe what they are doing  (and what resonates with you). Look at hugely popular pages and see what common themes they share.
  
  
• Hire someone to do it for you or arrange to have someone trained in house.
  
  
• Hire someone to at least train you on the best methods/practices and help you find a connection with Facebook that makes sense to you. (which is something I do, so email me if you want to chat about it)
  

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