Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm – called Edgerank – determines which stories appear in a user’s newsfeed, and in what order, based on factors like affinity, weight, and time decay. This means that fans are more likely to see your brand’s post if it was published fairly recently, and if the fan has established a pattern of meaningful interactions with your brand.
On September 20th, Facebook informed us they had made a critical change to the algorithm, reducing reach for organic posts by up to 4%. We’ve been monitoring our pages closely since then and have noticed organic reach, viral reach, and engagement per fan have indeed decreased. Virality has either maintained or slightly increased – meaning that of the number of people that ARE seeing a brand’s posts are engaging at the same rate or slightly more as before the Edgerank change.
What does this mean?
- Engagement will be more important than ever. Posts will have to work harder to get clicks, likes, comments, and shares.
- Posts that get fans to take action are the best way to minimize the impact of the News Feed change. Posts need to be clear, concise, and have a single/defined purpose and call to action.
- Growing the fan base and encouraging (more explicitly) fans to share posts should help boost virality/earned reach.
You can expect a slight decrease in reach reflected in your monthly reporting moving forward, so this might be a good time to re-evaluate your content strategy.
Big Fuel will continue to provide updates on the trends we’re seeing. In the mean time, feel free to continue the discussion with me in the comments section below!
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