Facebook has announced it’s made some big changes to its News Feed algorithm.

Facebook is updating their News Feed Algorithm which means a lot to company’s trying to expand their brands through social media, especially Facebook. We believe these updates could significantly impact how business’ of all sizes, in particular small business’, use Facebook for content marketing purposes.

In a post titled “News Feed FYI: Balancing Content from Friends and Pages,” Facebook said it’s constantly evaluating what’s the right mix of content in the News Feed from friends, public figures, publishers, and brands. For instance, news articles with many likes and comments have typically appeared high up in users’ news feeds, but that is being reduced to a degree in favor of non-business
content.

We believe it has a lot to do with traditional “Pay for Play” advertising model. If you want to be featured to your target audience, you have to pay for that highly coveted spot. That means that if major publishers see traffic dips—which is indicated to be quite possible—it might make them consider ramping up on paid Facebook promos.

Here’s a quick summary of Facebook’s algorithm update:

• Posts from friends will carry more weight than posts from brands. Friend’s posts will be higher up in the News Feed, with brand pages below. With this shift, organic posts from brands won’t carry as much weight, so to extend their reach they will have to engage in paid advertising.

• Stories about friends liking or commenting on posts will be de-emphasized. These stories will appear lower down on the News Feed or not at all.

• Facebook users will now be able to see more than one post from the same source in a row. Facebook says they are “relaxing” their previous rule that prevented back-to-back News Feed posts from the same source.

• This change may affect referral traffic for publishers. As a result of this update, publishers and brands could see a lower post reach and a decline in referral traffic.

Final Takeaways:

• This is a move that will keep Facebook relevant and create a better News Feed experience for users.

• As a brand or publisher, post things that are meaningful to your fans, rather than posting every day just to post something. The better quality, the better your content will stand out in the update.

• Plan on putting more emphasis on paid advertising to increase engagement- the good news here is that Facebook ads show great ROI.

This article was featured in Adweek, read more here!