Facebook has recently announced some significant changes that have the potential to impact upon the way we manage communities and post content on behalf of brands everywhere.
As you’ve probably seen, Facebook is currently rolling out its new Explore Feed – a new news-feed dedicated to content discovery – it is a combination of content from brands, friends, as well as recommended content (you can view this on the left-hand sub menu of the Facebook homepage – click Explore; ‘Explore Feed’).
At the same time as this, Facebook is also trailing a new algorithm in certain countries whereby all content from brands is automatically moved to this (less visible) Explore Feed.
That means in these cases the main newsfeed will be made up of content from just from your friends.
Therefore, for posts from brands to appear in a traditional newsfeed, you have to pay for it – in effect, organic reach is over.
The good news for brands: this is just a regional test in certain countries (not the UK) – at this stage, it’s unclear whether Facebook plans to roll this out globally and there’s no need to panic.
Possible implications for brand pages;

  • Organic content as we know it could become a thing of the past
  • A need for greater and more strategic investment in paid-content
  • A need for a revised channel strategy: hygiene and hub content to play greater roll on alternative social networks

About Chris Norton

Founder of Prohibition, listed in the world's top 30 marketing bloggers and an award winning online PR and crisis management specialist. Co-author of Share This Too.