The plot thickens… so I wrote back in June about my frustration at all the posts popping up on Business Pages about how Facebook had changed how they showed posts and now your posts wouldn’t be seen by everyone so you had to go off and enable viewing on your like on a page – very convoluted and completely a waste of time because at that time Facebook had not changed anything…
It seems though that they have changed something in the last 2-3 weeks… I noticed when training a client last week that her “talking about” rates and “reach” on her insights tabs of her page were unusually low and her graphs showed a very definite dip for some reason. I then went and looked at some other pages I manage and here’s where it gets confusing, some of them are showing massive increases in “people who viewed this post” and some show massive decreases. I’ve been trying to find common ground between the two but I can’t.
So I took to the google and found some articles that make interesting reading;
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-changed-edgerank-algorithm-to-hurt-advertisers-2012-10
http://edgerankchecker.com/blog/2012/10/facebook-decreases-pages-reach/
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/another-agency-claims-facebook-algorithm-changes-144405
http://wearesocial.net/blog/2012/10/react-halved-reach-facebook/
Facebook response;
“We’re continuing to optimize News Feed to show the posts that people are most likely to engage with, ensuring they see the most interesting stories. This aligns with our vision that all content should be as engaging as the posts you see from friends and family.”
So to summarise, Facebook have yet again changed things, this is nothing new for those of us working on the platform for a few years and if anything something we have come to expect. They are again emphasising the importance of engagement guys, if a fan comments on a post on your wall, if they like or share your item, this means they are engaging. But remember – you have to engage back, your content has to be interesting and relevant and most important of all you need to respond to their queries and comments on your wall.
If you ever want some advice or training be sure and pop me a note or give me a call.