Change To Facebook’s News Feed Coming January 2015

If you’re doing your marketing using Facebook, chances are you have already included Like ads in your strategy to attract new potential customers and increasing your organic growth among your current community on your Page. In January 2015, however, you will have to change your strategy around those Like ads and your overall publishing strategies; Facebook is changing the nature of the News Feed for its users, and the way you market yourself to your audience will be changed drastically.

Facebook recently surveyed 500,000 of its users and asked them how their experience could be improved, many of the responses stated that users wanted to see less promotional content, and that the majority of the posts that annoyed them weren’t ads per se, but organically displayed posts from the various Pages that they “Liked.” Here is two examples from a Facebook Press Release of the types of posts which will be impacted by the News Feed update:

After receiving this feedback, Facebook decided to change their rules to reflect users’ wishes. In a blog post to its users and business partners, Facebook stated the following:

“According to people we surveyed, there are some consistent traits that make organic posts feel too promotional: 1) posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app; 2) posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context; 3) posts that reuse the same content from ads.”

Another possible reason that Facebook changed its strategy in terms of News Feed policy and organic ads is that there is a significant increase in what users actually see in their News Feed; it is attempting to improve the situation by reducing the amount of so-called “click bait” or ads using pushy content such as “BUY NOW” to reduce the amount of spam-like content in the News Feed for users. Facebook claims that the majority of Pages will not be affected by the changes.

As a result of these changes by Facebook, it presents a formidable challenge for businesses and marketers. They now must become adaptable, revise their publishing strategies, and create compelling and effective content for their Pages communities that not only follows Facebook’s new rules, but that also keeps their users engaged and maintain their organic growth, though that organic reach may now be reduced due to the new rules and the increasing competition for space on a user’s News Feed.

The new year will bring about new changes; but perhaps Facebook’s new News Feed changes can be a benefit to businesses, as it creates an opportunity to really get to know their users and be in touch with their needs and wants to be able to be seen among the many posts and other content that they see every day they use the service on their desktop or mobile.