Mark Zuckerberg & the Fallout of January 12, 2018

‘Let’s get to work’ has easily transitioned to ‘let’s start something new’. Every day. And yes, that definitely seems to be the mantra of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg recently made an announcement that he’s doing a year-long overhaul of Facebook feeds. Let’s catch up on the action.

Here’s a ring-side view of what’s in store for 2018. Based on interesting and constructive feedback from users, Facebook is set to change the algorithm of how individual feeds will appear to users. Any Facebook feed today is cluttered with more brand and advertiser content rather than from friends and family. The clinical experts at Menlo Park got to work and zeroed in on the fact that to users, engagement shouldn’t be by compulsion, but rather, by choice.

Doing a recce of posts, the company figured that unpaid posts outdid the volume of posts by users. The first step towards redeeming this was to choke the reach of organic or unpaid posts and stories from brands & advertisers that try to get a slice of the user’s time. This year, ‘public content’ or unpaid posts that run on user feeds will be relegated to the bottom rung of the ladder. That’s right, this year the focus will be on family and friend posts that users would be able to glide through on personal feeds alongside paid posts vis-à-vis stories that are unpaid.

Here’s what Zuckerberg had to say, ““We’re making a major change to how we build Facebook, I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

Here’s what it means to brand pages and how they can tide over the sweeping change:

1. Yes, ads will be fewer on newsfeeds.
2. That said, Remarketing ads will continue to run.
3. Yes, brand pages will be fewer on feeds.
4. The bright side? Group & Community pages will pick up momentum.
5. As users watch Videos passively, they will be much less on feeds.
6. But then, Live Videos will shine through.

Facebook is clearly looking at vibrant and happy networking and not just anything even remotely passive on the platform. Will this be the wind of change for things to come? Well, let’s get into a watch and wait mode as time would be the best decider.

On our part, BYT can help you brand your service; product or page better considering this mega change that is set to sweep the social media behemoth this year. Know more about our services here.