Media houses, bloggers, small and large publishers, and businessmen can breathe easy now. Facebook has abandoned its 2 News Feeds or Explore Feed Test project.
The 2 News Feeds test that was launched in October 2017 was being conducted in six countries. Its purpose was to create a Facebook page where there will be two News Feeds instead of one as it is today:
- One, where members could browse posts from friends and family; and
- Two, where members could see posts from Facebook pages run by publishers and businesses.
The fallout of such a move on media is easy to understand. Most Facebook members would have looked at their personal feed only. They would have stopped browsing the Pages News Feed, and the impact on referral traffic would have been disastrous.
Ever since Facebook became the world’s largest social media platform, media houses across the world have worked aggressively to secure Facebook referral traffic. They have hired editors whose job is to lure traffic from Facebook through smart Page posts.
The Explore Feed Test, if it had worked, would have led to a dramatic shrinking of this traffic. The media posts would not have figured in the personal posts of members, and several members may have ignored the Pages News Feed.
Fortunately for publishers, especially large media houses, that depend on Facebook to drive huge volumes of referral traffic Facebook has decided to end its Explore Feed Test.
Facebook’s News Feed chief in a blogpost announced that “People don’t want two separate feeds. In surveys, people told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn’t actually help them connect more with friends and family.”
Stress is on meaningful interactions
Facebook has instead decided to bank on its January News Feed tweak to produce more “meaningful social interactions”.
This News Feed tweak must also be hurting publishers because the change will reduce posts from businesses, brands, and media in the News Feed.
It is important to understand Facebook’s philosophy. The Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg drove home this point when he outlined Facebook’s News Feed strategy in his January 18 post. “One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.”.
But how will Facebook ensure this? According to Zuckerberg, “We will prioritize posts from friends and family over public content, consistent with our News Feed values. ”
The media should not dismiss this statement. It must understand that Facebook is worried about its falling engagement, and slowing down of growth. Says Zuckerberg, “… recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
Media needs to tweak Facebook strategy
The implications of this announcement are serious for large media houses, not to mention bloggers and businesses. The media will have to find new ways to milk Facebook. So far, the media used engagement signals such as comments, shares or likes to decide its Facebook post strategy.
The Facebook News Feed Chief is clear as to what will happen. He says, “Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease.”
He, of course, softens the blow by giving some tips to publishers. According to him, “The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it.”
His advice to media is simple. The media will not lose referral traffic if its posts “prompt conversations” among friends. However, “Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution.”
Page posts that will rank high in News Feed
So, what kind of posts should media and businesses publish if they want to make proper use of Facebook as an important traffic source? According to Facebook, the best Page posts are:
- Live videos that lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook. Such videos get six times as many interactions as regular videos.
- Regular videos that prompt discussions
- Posts from celebrities
- Posts about Facebook events created by publishers
- News that can help start conversations on important issues.
Facebook has also warned companies not to resort to engagement bait. Facebook says such posts do not promote meaningful interaction, and it will continue to demote these posts in News Feed. (Read:
Facebook understands that in its quest to increase “meaningful interactions” the time people spend on Facebook may go down. There may be also some drop in engagement.
(Read: What is engagement post and why is Facebook against it)
But Zuckerberg is clear about one thing, and that is he expects that the time people spend on Facebook should be “more valuable”.
Media must pay heed to this, and tweak its strategy accordingly.