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Facebook Changes 2016


As you may be aware, Facebook has introduced some pesky layout changes recently, and more significantly it has once again tweaked its algorithm over the past few months. Some of the major changes that came into effect in April in particular have been causing headaches for businesses as they have impacted how business pages operate. On Wednesday here at Dungarvan Enterprise Centre, Mags our Centre Manager delivered a comprehensive workshop on these changes and how to work around them. In case you missed it (shame on you!), here’s a run-through of what was covered.

The Basics

These are some of the basic design and layout updates which Facebook has implemented.

What has happened to my Page feed?!

·         The change:

This was the first change which caused many of us to scratch our heads thinking that the news feed for our business page had simply disappeared. You used to be able to access the News Feed for your page (as opposed to your personal profile) by switching to your page using the dropdown menu in the top right-hand corner of the page. This would enable you to use Facebook as your page.

·         The workaround:

Now, if you want to access your news feed, you simply go to your business page and select “See Pages Feed” from the options menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

Cover Photo Dimensions

·         The change:

The dimensions of your cover photo have been changed slightly from 851x315px to 828x315px. If you’ve noticed your header looking a little squished of late, this is why.

·         The workaround:

If your cover photo is an ordinary picture, you probably aren’t having much of a problem- at least nothing that repositioning it as usual won’t fix. If you have been using your business logo, or any picture that was specifically designed to fit the original cover photo dimensions, you might be affected. You can correct your cover photo easily in an image editor. There’s a range of free image editing platforms online to meet your needs- we recommend PicMonkey.com

Instant Articles

·         The change:

Instant Articles are a new feature on Facebook. It’s an important one for publishers as it enables them to create smart, interactive articles on Facebook. Instead of leaving the Facebook app and loading the article in a different window, the articles can now open within Facebook itself. This means that they have a faster loading time than before. Videos within articles will now play automatically and photos will appear bigger.

·         The workaround:

No workaround needed here as Instant articles is a new feature as opposed to a change. You do need to submit a minimum of fifty articles to be approved for this feature though, so get writing!

Facebook Advertising: The 20% Text Rule

·         The change:
For Facebook marketers, one of the most difficult aspects of using Facebook as an advertising medium is getting your message across in a concise way while following all of the guidelines. Facebook has finally made the decision to change the 20 percent ad image text overlay rule. This change is currently being tested in the U.K and Ireland.
·         The workaround:
To replace the original system, Facebook has introduced four new categories to help advertisers define the level of text overlay in their ads: OK, Low, Medium and High.
The OK category typically encompasses images with no text other than a company logo. With a low classification, which is roughly defined as a company logo with some text, your ad reach may be slightly restricted. Images with a medium classification will have an even more restricted reach, and images with high text volume won’t run. Fortunately, there are some exceptions to this rule: Book or album covers, event posters and product images are also won’t be penalised. Since Facebook is testing and rolling out the new options gradually, the changes are not yet in place for all users. You should still include as little text as possible on your images and leave the promotional details for the actual post.
Algorithm Changes
Here we’ll go through the slightly more complicated algorithm changes which Facebook has recently implemented.
User Diversity
·         The change:
Facebook reports that users enjoy reading articles from a wide range of publishers, so they have tweaked the algorithm for greater diversity of page posts. This means it will reduce how often people see content from one source back-to-back, or content from the same page.
·         The workaround:
Because Facebook generally won’t show a user several posts in a row from your page, it is now more important than ever to space your posts out over time. This isn’t always ideal as most businesses tend to post during business hours, but you can make use of the “Schedule” feature to keep your posts evenly spread. You might have noticed that you can’t schedule posts when sharing- you can get around this most of the time by copying and pasting the link to the post you want to share and then posting it as usual from your page’s Timeline.
There is also a good side to this change, which is that if you have multiple platforms for your business besides Facebook, for example websites, blogs, newsletters and so on, Facebook will be glad to see content coming in from several different sources and you will be more likely to reach the news feeds of your audience.
The Importance of Quality Content
·         The change
There are also some changes in how posts are picked for a user’s news feed; Facebook wants to phase out content that isn’t meaningful or useful to its users.
There are a few important implications of these changes. If you run a small business, the most important thing here is probably that ‘Like&Share’ competitions have been targeted. Facebook sees these as spammy behaviour so these types of post will really struggle to gain position in the news feed from here on out.
·         The workaround
Fortunately there is a way around this, although we’d strongly suggest brainstorming ways of promoting your business by working with Facebook instead of against it- it’s only going to get harder as time goes on. But if you really do want to run campaigns such as ‘Like&Share’ competitions, it appears that for the time being, Facebook’s main red light for detecting spammy posts are currency symbols such as € or £. Including these symbols in your posts is likely to damage your post reach, and annoyingly this does include cases where you have a currency symbol in a completely ordinary, un-spammy post. Instead of typing these, for example “Win a voucher worth €80!”, type something like “Win a voucher worth 80EUR”. This should stop your posts being penalised for now.

·         The change:

Audience Optimisation: Introduced in January and known as the Audience Optimization tool, this new feature allows publishers to set preferences on each new post to target a specific audience based on interests, demographics, and geographic location.
·         The workaround:
This tool makes it easier for you to direct a post to your intended audience, but there are some things to bear in mind. Most importantly, don’t be tempted to include too many target groups. Keep it specific- the more tags you include, the more likely you are to simply confuse Facebook and reach nobody at all.
·         The change:
Live Video: We know that Facebook prioritises rich media such as video in its’ news feeds, and that it introduced a live video-streaming service late last year. It turns out that live videos are watched three times longer than ordinary videos, so in March Facebook tweaked the algorithm to prioritise live video in user news feeds. Facebook previously prioritised stories that it deemed “best,” not necessarily the most current. This live video update changes that. It also helps Facebook keep up with Twitter’s real-time post, and to cash in on the “right-now” phenomenon that has catapulted platforms such as Snapchat to such instant and massive popularity.

·         The workaround:

Get filming! This is a fantastic time for small businesses to use the live-video feature, as so far it has mainly been picked up by bigger companies. Chances are, if you start introducing live streams now, your followers will watch out of curiosity as they won’t have come across Facebook Live very much yet. Any engagement you get from going live will be a boost for your Page’s track record and will help show your followers that you are current, exciting, and willing to go out on a limb.
As far as content is concerned, small businesses also have a window of opportunity to stand out from the crowd and gain a loyal following. We’ve talked previously about how much people love to get a glimpse behind the scenes of companies (see our article on Snapchat- many of the tactics employed in a Snapchat strategy will also work for live-streaming). Obviously it isn’t a good idea to go Live without planning in advance- Murphy’s Law deems this a recipe for disaster actually, but you could do a weekly spot at whatever time your followers are most active- you can find this out from the ‘Insights” tab of your page.
Some other things to bear in mind about Facebook Live Video:

  •          As the video is shooting, you see how many people are watching the video as well as their names and comments.
  •         As soon as it’s over the video is automatically saved to your timeline.
  •         You can share it, tweet it, embed it in blog posts or delete it.
  •        Unlike Periscope videos or Snapchat stories -- these videos are not going to disappear after 24 hours.
**Hack: Launch your “Like&Share” competitions from a pre-announced live video! You can ask for likes, shares and mention money as much as you want- Facebook won’t penalise this- in fact, you’ll be launching competitions from the most desirable platform on Facebook at the moment. So you can boost your page engagement while sneakily promoting your page!
·         The change:
Time is of the essence: This calls into play yet another update to the News Feed that’ll change the prioritization of what users see in theirs. Interacting with a post (liking, commenting, or sharing) is a good indicator for what users are interested in. It is not the only way of gauging interest however. Users are less likely to interact with a sad news-related post or a serious current event, but that does not mean they do not want these stories in their News Feeds. In lieu of an algorithm change in April, Facebook will now measure the potential interest in a post based on the following criteria: user interest in the creator, post-performance among other users, past content performance of the creator, type of post the user prefers, and how recent the post is. When a user clicks on a post or link, Facebook will measure how much time they spend on the post, even if they don’t like, comment, or share. This will help Facebook in its algorithm when predicting and prioritizing which posts a user is most interested in.
         The workaround:
Unfortunately, there isn’t really a quick solution to this one, folks! All we can do is try to take advantage of all the information we have on how Facebook works to try to keep our performances persistent and build momentum. There is a silver lining though, in that if a follower views or engages with your page or its’ posts, for a short time your posts will continue to show up on that user’s feed as Facebook will have deemed your page of interest to the user.
·         The change:
Trending: Similar to Twitter, the News Feed will now show stories about things that are trending as soon as they occur, so the user can immediately know what friends or favourite Pages are saying about the stories of the day. This means that when a Page posts about something that is currently a hot topic of conversation on Facebook, that post is more likely to gain a good position in users’ feeds. Early testing has shown that this update on average leads to a more than 6% increase in people engaging with these stories (e.g., more people share, comment, like or click).

·         The workaround:

Unlike some of the other changes which can be a little tricky to work around, the solution to this one is so obvious that chances are you’ve already been doing it all along: All you need to do is try and draw links between current events and your company and post about them! So if you sell hats, for example, and the hot topic of the day is Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to Ireland, you could take advantage of the fact that the internet has consistently poked fun at his comb-over and post about providing with a specially designed head covering!


….Okay, it’s probably a good idea to steer clear of political commentary unless it’s actually relevant to your page- the idea is to gain followers rather than alienate them. In fact, one of the deciding factors behind this particular algorithm change was to help Facebook steer clear of political bias after Mark Zuckerberg got into a spot of bother with conservatives. But you get the idea. Another great facet of what’s Trending is that small, local businesses can easily get in on the action of trending local topics, and we know that local news, particularly good news, tends to be very successful on Facebook. If you mentioned last week’s beautiful weather on your Page at all, you’ve probably seen this in action quite recently!

That’s all folks- if you’re still reading, congratulations! There’s a lot to think about but the ever-changing landscape of social media is the bread and butter of marketers in this day and age. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for other news about marketing and social media as well as upcoming workshops and events at the Centre. And (because I’m free to mention it here!), don’t forget to like and share!

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