The grand Facebook change and what it means for users, marketers, and businesses.

You don’t want to ruin it with ads because ads aren’t cool. It’s like you’re throwing the greatest party on campus and someone’s telling you it’s gotta be over at 11:00. 

This conversation between Sean, Mark, and Eduardo changed the fate of Facebook, forever. Facebook has come a long way. It is bigger than any Social Network on the planet and I don't really think anybody can take it's place anytime soon. And all of that, just because of Zuckerberg and his team's vision. 

Facebook, that once used to be a style-statement for teenagers, has now become a part of everybody's life. It is no more a "look how cool" thing but in fact, Facebook is a necessity now. We can't really survive without Facebook even for a day, can we? It is one of the most powerful platforms and the biggest network. In fact, if Facebook was a country, it'd be the third largest in the world. The newsfeed is so addictive that we keep looking at it all day long without even realizing it. But lately, the newsfeed started looking really shitty with really stupid content floating on top. Personally, I started using less Facebook because of stupid posts like "tag a friend whose name starts with A".

Unless you were on Mars, you would have heard about the recent announcement by Facebook that it is going to change what is displayed on the News Feed and how it is going to rank posts by friends higher than posts by pages. Some people are even seeing it as a "death certificate" for organic content. Marketers are afraid and that's completely okay. It is indeed a major change. This news has not just caused a panic among marketers but even at the wall street. Facebook's shares dropped about 4% with this announcement (I really don't understand why because this change will actually increase Facebook's revenue). Here's my take on the news and what it means for everyone:

What it means for users:

• In a nutshell, users will see more posts from Friends, Families, and Groups (yay!). Users will see fewer posts from Brands, Media Houses, and Pages. Facebook is reducing its reach for non-promoted content from pages. Facebook wants you to spend less time passively scrolling through updates on your timeline, reading articles and watching videos, but not interacting with others. To increase interactions with each other it will prioritize personal content, for eg. parents discussing what bedtime stories to read to children, a friend seeking advice on places to travel or a news article or video on a topic you care about, more than others.
• Facebook says it will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, they will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about and show these posts higher in the feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussions.
• Facebook will show less content from media pages, publishers, and pages that drive traffic to their website using engagement-bait links. If you really love a brand or a local business, you will have to subscribe to it manually by clicking on "See First" on the page.

What it means for Marketers:

• It means your work is going to get tougher. Facebook says it will show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses. Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it.
• Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect. However, posts that use engagement-bait to generate conversations will be penalized.
• Live Videos will be prioritized over everything else. Non-promoted live videos will also have a higher reach compared to regular videos. (Did you know: Live videos have about 6 times more engagement than regular videos?)
• Marketers will have to focus on great content including good content, good copy, and the right timing combined with the right use of promotion. Poorly performing ad sets, a result of bad creative, poor copy or irrelevant targeting are going to cause a bigger hole in your (and your client's) advertising budget.
• As more businesses continue to fight to be seen in the newsfeed, expect the cost of advertising to on the platform to drastically increase.
• Sorry marketers, but you're going to have to figure out a way to get people to take interest in what you say without giving away freebies or asking for likes to enter a contest.
• I say that every time and I will say it again (with greater emphasis this time), you need to stop ignoring analytics. Data doesn't lie. Analytics will become more important and you will have to become data-hungry to stay on top.
• Social Media Marketing will not be about downloading stock images, photoshopping them and posting. You will have to work hard to find interesting content, create engaging campaigns, and using the right promotion techniques.
• However, marketers should use this change in Facebook’s approach to distributing content as an opportunity to go back to the basics of building vs. doing.
• Creative agencies will have to hire a few geeks too! You will now need expertise with Analytics, and how to put data to use.
• A small tip: Shift your focus from Page Posts to creating Groups, Events, Live Videos.

What it means for Brands/Businesses:

• Well, your expense is going to get higher.
• You cant take Social media lightly anymore. Consider it as a mainstream source of advertising like Television, Radio, OOH or Newspaper.
• Only serious players will remain in the market as there's not a lot of scope left for organic posts. Brands and businesses will start promoting their content more heavily. Brand Managers will have to keep a close look at the competition and what they are posting.
• Spend time with your agency on creating content that you think your community wants. Spend more time interacting with the community to find out what it is that interests them the most.
• We have seen a lot of brands post content every day just for the sake of posting it. Brands aren't concerned whether the post reaches the audience or not, whether it gets engagement or not. You will have to stop doing that from now on. Shift your focus towards quality and not quantity. Post less content, but make sure it is a great one.
• If you're planning to award your contract to a new agency, make sure their team has people who understand how to put data to use, who understand Social Media Analytics and those who understand the math behind Facebook Ads. You can't really go a long way with a creative agency anymore. You will need an agency that has nerds too!

What it means for us:

• Facebook remains our highest priority at Inclick Track. We are working hard to understand the impact it will have on your business.
• We have already started changing how we calculate scores and how insights are calculated on the basis of the new algorithm.
• We don't really have a lot of info on this change right now, but we are ensuring that we quickly integrate changes as soon as we have more info from Facebook or other sources. 
• We will be rolling out a new feature that we are calling "Inclick Intelligent Insight". These insights will be displayed on the Post Analytics Page, and the Page Analytics Page of Facebook initially and we will integrate it with Instagram and Twitter later on. 
• Inclick Intelligent Insight will show a lot of Intelligent Insights that will be calculated using AI. It will show which post has gathered more engagement, conversations, etc in a new way. We will be releasing a list of all the changes soon.

I know you might be having a lot of questions or queries about the new change. At this point, even I'm not sure if I'll have an answer to all of them but I can try answering your queries. Please feel free to leave your queries and feedback in the comments section. I'll try to reply to each one of you. Thanks for reading this long article. I appreciate your patience. Happy Social Networking! :)