Facebook announced even more changes to its News Feed algorithm today,
aimed at “cleaning up News Feed spam”. Facebook will be targeting three
specific types of posts, and stop showing them in the News Feed:
like-baiting, frequently circulated content, and spammy links.
If Facebook is actually able to execute this well, then the news isn’t so bad. Organic reach for Page posts is
already on its deathbed,
and these changes are actually targeting content that few will probably
miss from their News Feeds. If it’s not executed well, Facebook could
be showing some of your legitimate posts to even less people.
“The vast majority of publishers on Facebook are not posting feed spam so
should not be negatively impacted by these changes, and,
if anything, may see a very small increase in News Feed distribution,” the company says in the
announcement. Emphasis added.
It’s that “if anything” part that’s a little worrisome. But again,
organic reach is already nearly evaporated for most Pages, so it’s kind
of like “who cares?” at this point. The real damage is already done.
A little more about these three types of content Facebook is targeting now…
Like-baiting is essentially the type of post that explicitly asks or
tells users to like, comment, or share the post. I’m pretty sure
Facebook has indicated that this type of thing would get hurt in the
past, but I guess they mean it this time.
“People often respond to posts asking them to take an action, and
this means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown
higher up in News Feed,” Facebook says. “However, when we survey people
and ask them to rate the quality of these stories, they report that
like-baiting stories are, on average, 15% less relevant than other
stories with a comparable number of likes, comments and shares. Over
time, these stories lead to a less enjoyable experience of Facebook
since they drown out content from friends and Pages that people really
care about.”
Matthew Ingram at GigaOm
makes a good point:
“There’s no question that many, perhaps even most, Facebook users would
dislike this content intensely and vote to have it removed from their
News Feed — except perhaps for younger users, who often enjoy that sort
of thing, in part because it irritates adults. But I can think of other
examples of content that might be considered like-bait that I saw
friends willingly share, including photos of people fighting cancer who
were trying to get a certain number of likes, and so on. That kind of
thing may not be “high quality” content, but some people clearly enjoy
it. ”
The update, Facebook says, won’t impact Pages “genuinely trying to
encourage discussion”. Those Pages should still see the minuscule amount
of reach they’re already getting.
By “frequently circulated content,” Facebook means instances where photos or videos are uploaded over and over again.
“We’ve found that people tend to find these instances of repeated
content less relevant, and are more likely to complain about the Pages
that frequently post them,” Facebook says. “We are improving News Feed
to de-emphasize these Pages, and our early testing shows that this
change causes people to hide 10% fewer stories from Pages overall.”
Finally, Facebook considers spammy links to be those that use
“inaccurate language or formatting to try and trick people into clicking
through to a website that contains only ads or a combination of
frequently circulated content and ads.”
“For instance, often these stories claim to link to a photo album but
instead take the viewer to a website with just ads,” Facebook explains.
It says it can better detect these types of links by measuring how
frequently people choose to like the original post or share it with
their friends.
The publishers being targeted here will see their reach decrease over the next few months, Facebook says.
Like I said, for the most part, people aren’t going to miss any of
this type of content if Facebook’s algorithm does its job right. These
are mostly shady ways to get engagement. You’re
better off posting interesting photos.
About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the
WebProNews team and the
iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003
Resource:
http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-is-killing-3-types-of-content-in-the-news-feed-2014-04 
