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The Hard Truth About How The Facebook News Feed Works Now (8)

02-13-2014 05:51 PM #1 cmdeal (Veteran Member)
The Hard Truth About How The Facebook News Feed Works Now

Excerpted from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-t...#ixzz2tEHK1Hmx

"I spoke to a source familiar with Facebook’s News Feed plans, who, on the condition of anonymity, gave me a very candid explanation.

Here is what I learned from that conversation:

Two years ago, no one really got their news from Facebook. Now, they do. Every publisher on the planet from CNN to Buzzfeed to the New York Times is producing content they hope readers will find and share through the Facebook News Feed.
So now there's just a lot more content going into the News Feed and it all competes. Facebook's struggle is figuring out how to get the right stories to the top.
Facebook's guiding principle is that the News Feed should be full of stuff Facebook users want to see.
Facebook has changed its mind about brands. It has decided that users do not really want to see a News Feed full of updates from brands – Tide, Dove, Pampers, Nyquil, etc.
If News Feed is a main marketing channel for you, then you need to buy guaranteed reach from Facebook: ads.
Many individuals trying to market themselves have always been plagued by a misperception that the number of fans you have is the number of people who will see what you write. This has probably never been true. Get it out of your head.
Facebook could make it so the News Feed scrolls faster, therefore making sure more content gets to flow through the channel and increasing reach (if not engagement) for everyone. Facebook is not going to to do this. Internal data shows that when Facebook speeds up the News Feed, user engagement with it goes down.
Facebook believes random stuff in the News Feed sucks.
Facebook has decided it is better to show old "important" news instead of the latest update. For example, news that a friend had a baby, even if the news was posted two days ago, will get priority over any brand's update if you haven't seen it yet.
Facebook is aware that there is a cottage industry built around helping brands reach fans for free through the News Feed. Facebook's view is that these people were arbitraging its system, and it's not going to allow that anymore. It expects consolidation similar to what happened in the search engine optimization industry.
People like small time cook book author, Stephanie Stiavetti, have to deal with a new reality. They were once the only professional publishers on Facebook. Now, huge publishers that spend millions of dollars on content production are her competitors News Feed real estate. Stiavetti's recipes and photos are competing with clips from Top Chef, and losing."

02-13-2014 06:51 PM #2 liane (Member)

Yeah...I've definitely experienced this big time on the pages I manage.

So...what do you think are some solutions to getting your content seen on Facebook - or is the answer to go off of Facebook and get someone's email as soon as you get their "like?"

02-14-2014 05:32 PM #3 ThrvTrkr (Member)

I'm totally in the don't build your audience on Facebook camp. Extract audiences and own them yourself.

02-14-2014 07:47 PM #4 stackcash (Member)

But this is all in relation to organic news feed stuff, yes? Your sponsored posts will be seen as much as you want them to be seen.

02-14-2014 07:55 PM #5 Adamw (AMC Alumnus)

Facebook Fraud??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

02-14-2014 09:48 PM #6 grandtheftpixel (Senior Member)

Originally Posted by ffclogin

I'm totally in the don't build your audience on Facebook camp. Extract audiences and own them yourself.

Exactly.

I know of one VC funded team working on a strong (validated) idea, however they've built an engagement model that relies solely around community on facebook/fan pages etc.

The product doesn't harvest or funnel users at all. They don't own a single thing and they couldn't see how that was the case. Shame.

Facebook are uncompromisingly user first. It doesn't matter who you are, if you've built your business on top of Facebook it's only a matter of time before one policy update knocks you out. Platforms on top of platforms that don't offer direct and real value to the core are generally shit businesses anyway.

02-15-2014 04:14 PM #7 ThrvTrkr (Member)

Originally Posted by stackcash

But this is all in relation to organic news feed stuff, yes? Your sponsored posts will be seen as much as you want them to be seen.

Question is if you want to pay over and over again every time to reach an audience. Or do you pay once, extract the audience, and be able to market to that over and over again for "free".

02-15-2014 05:10 PM #8 stackman (Administrator)

Originally Posted by ffclogin

I'm totally in the don't build your audience on Facebook camp. Extract audiences and own them yourself.

This is always the safest way, but building your audience on the platform you're advertising on will usually yield higher conversions/leads etc..

ex: You'll get a lot more Facebook likes then emails

So its quite a tricky toss up depending on what you're doing

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