Facebook algorithm changes?

Two weeks ago Mark Zuckerberg in his published FB post announced new changes in the platform’s algorithm. I’m not exactly sure how it will go, or how it will be deployed, but the sure thing is that these changes will diminish at absolute zero the pages’ published content in our personal account timelines. Good for family and friends, bad for publishers, brands, communities, agencies, and advertisers.

Of course, you can’t be sure if these changes will be permanent on Facebook for us, its users. The platform is somehow acting childishly to its stakeholders and shareholders, with its constant changes (300 per year?), and while still experimenting, its market decision-making resembles a pure ‘monopoly (it is like hearing Mark and his management team pompously saying “I’m the Sire, I decide so”). For now, Facebook says it plans to transform the newsfeed to promote “meaningful posts”. Most meaningful posts? Who judges that?

What sparked it all?

I think it all boils down to an FB’s plan to quiet down the corporate pitches and news, especially the fake news, to get back to letting friends hang with friends in a better “neighbourhood”. To tell you the truth, they do have a point. Every lousy (fake) entrepreneur was marketing a slides’ collection video, hidden political groups were splashing hate on the timeline and so on.

Here is (the Sire) Zuckerberg in his own words: “Video and other public content have exploded on Facebook in the past couple of years. Since there’s more public content than posts from your friends and family, the balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do–help us connect with each other. We feel a responsibility to make sure our services aren’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being.”

Facebook brings many disputes

Every company is an experiment. A learning on the way. And yet even among all tech giants, few experiments seem so emotionally laden as Facebook’s. The company has inserted itself between us and our friends — and between us and the news (fake or real) — and the ultimate result is anyone’s guess. The company and its positioning bring along a trust and credibility issue.

Facebook knew it had a problem. It’s the cry of a mother for the kid stop wasting time on the platform. It’s the page/publisher who promotes (internet) ‘get-rich-quick schemes’ and lousy seminars. It’s the fake news ‘clan’ promoting hate and political racism. It’s the communities doing social causes and wide good. It’s recently redundant who now produces cupcakes. It’s the pensioner trying to find what’s going on in the (timeline) world. All of them on the same platform.

Facebook failed on “Social = happy”

Zuckerberg cites research that has been done (by Facebook and other sources) about the impact of social media on the population, and the results are not great. In December, Facebook admitted in a post titled, Hard Questions: Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us? that it poses a mental health risk: “…when people spend a lot of time passively consuming information–reading but not interacting with people–they report feeling worse afterwards…researchers hypothesize that reading about others online might lead to negative social comparison–and perhaps even more so than offline, since people’s posts are often more curated and flattering.” The same research suggests that those “actively interacting with people” do feel better.

The platform became full of fast, cheap video, which meant lots of stock footage with captions over it. This sort of video is one of the obvious losers in FB’s announcement. If you like passively watching 90-sec videos with the sound off, start looking at them elsewhere.

Facebook promised to be the most sophisticated advertising platform

Facebook smartly aggregated all of these communities and audiences in one place (almost 2 billion people), so it created the very foundation for a sophisticated advertising platform. It has become a media platform (whether they like that title or not). Around it many new digital/FB agencies and freelancers appeared, promising that they hold the ‘magic stick’ of likes and shares. Now the ad industry is in shock and advertisers will soon realize how expensive sport it will be.

In the long run, it will ultimately charge a much-much higher premium to advertisers. Now by cleaning up our timeline, it will charge more for brands / pages / publishers offerings. Where does this leave a business that’s been working hard over the past 10 years (or more) to get customers to “like” brands on Facebook, follow your posts and engage with them on the platform?

Facebook’s throttling of business content has actually driven their stock price north for many quarters to a US $526.33 billion market cap (and it does not look to be slowing down in a media world where ad spend is expected to hit about $580 billion with 4% growth from last year).

Now the platform plans to promote posts that generate discussions over those that are passively consumed, it said. Company executives say they hope the changes will make people feel better about using Facebook, following a year in which critics have warned of its negative effects on society and the news.

Facebook no more a news publishing powerhouse?  

Facebook was fighting hard for 10 years to activate all of its users (staying more on the platform) and news publishing (yes, even fake news), pages, videos helped it a lot at this strategy. Mark will have a tough stock-market-time now, turning the back to the revenue from publishers. FB is now a data powerhouse but engagement goes down rapidly as people’s feeds get filled with brands constantly trying to promote. Tough equation: are you after the people well-being, or after the advertisers’ money? Does Facebook see advertising revenue as their core business model or are they realizing that the pervasive flow of fake news in recent years is just another form of bad advertisement? Tough calls…

Facebook has angered publishers with its recent algorithm update. And now some are now calling to be paid for the news they produce! Things are heating up fast between Facebook and publishers, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch thinks he has the solution: Facebook should pay publishers a “carriage” fee!! His announcement comes after Facebook claimed it would ask users to vote for “trusted publishers” who would then receive special treatment on the newsfeed. Murdoch’s point is that if (trusted) publishers are indeed enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content, then Facebook has to pay for it!

Zuckerberg looks again to its community member, the customer

Facebook realized that more ads and more corporate content that is paying to be in the news feed, are not really helping Facebook brand and positioning. Let’s face it people do go to Facebook for their news, to relax, socialize, and primarily have fun. Of course, they connect with brands and more.

Ultimately, it sounds like Zuckerberg and his team are figuring out what those of us in the media have known for a long time: quality content rules, too many ads poison the well, and understanding your consumers (what they really want to consume and connect with) can open up much better monetization models than disrupting them with ads that aren’t even close to being relevant.