Facebook’s Latest Algorithm Change Could Hurt Page Reach

Facebook has announced a new change to its News Feed algorithm that may come as another blow to businesses and marketers who rely on the social media platform to reach consumers.

Over the next few weeks, Facebook users may see a dramatic difference in their News Feed content. The social media giant explains that it is trying to provide users with more information about their favorite friends, while some may be concerned about how Facebook makes this determination. For businesses, Facebook’s changes to its News Feed algorithm could result in a significant decrease in traffic that is sent to them by the social network.

“We want to let you know about a change that may affect referral traffic for publishers,” Facebook product manager Max Eulenstein and user experience researcher Lauren Scissors wrote in a blog post. “In some cases, post reach and referral traffic could potentially decline.”

Scissors and Eulenstein outlined the following three major changes to the News Feed algorithm.

1. Facebook users will now be able to see more than one News Feed post from the same source in a row. Previously, Facebook’s algorithm prevented this from occurring. This change could actually be good for publishers, as users will now be able to see more than one of their articles in a row.
2. Facebook will start prioritizing News Feed content posted by friends. “The second update tries to ensure that content posted directly by the friends you care about, such as photos, videos, status updates or links, will be higher up in News Feed so you are less likely to miss it,” wrote Facebook. This change could certainly prove to be problematic for businesses. If users start to see more content from friends and less content from Pages, the reach of businesses on Facebook could potentially decrease significantly.
3. Facebook will hide posts that say what your friends have liked or commented on. This change could prove to be very detrimental for businesses, by either removing or at least limiting second-hand interactions from users’ News Feeds.

While Facebook warned these changes could cause reduced distribution for some Pages, the company tried to balance this statement by writing that referral traffic to media publishers has doubled in the past 18 months. Regardless, there is no denying the fact that the overall organic reach for business pages on Facebook has declined greatly in recent times.

“The impact of these changes on your page’s distribution will vary considerably depending on the composition of your audience and your posting activity,” wrote Facebook in its blog post. “In some cases, post reach and referral traffic could potentially decline. Overall, pages should continue to post things that people find meaningful and consider these best practices for driving referral traffic.”

It’s difficult to know exactly how these changes will affect specific businesses on Facebook. There are a variety of factors that determine what a user sees in their News Feed, including the Pages that they follow, the content that they interact with, and the other users that they interact with most often. A Facebook representative explained that even if a user doesn’t follow many news outlets on the social media platform, if they interact frequently with friends who share a lot of stories, they may still see that content high up in their News Feed.

Businesses have been struggling with the decline in organic reach on Facebook for quite a while now, and this latest News Feed algorithm change could cause further concerns. However, by posting intriguing content on the social media network, there is still hope that businesses can generate enough sharing of their posts that their user reach will continue to provide them with effective marketing opportunities on Facebook.