The social media giant has been trying to change that for years, and its latest update puts it closer to its goal. A change to the newsfeed will roll out slowly over the next few months, prioritizing not just those you interact with most, but the statuses that spur the most interaction. To do so, it will predict the posts you may want to converse about, and put them higher in the newsfeed. “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,” explains head of News Feed Adam Mosseri.
Fewer Posts from Businesses
For general users, it will likely be a welcome change, but businesses may not be as happy. Mosseri says pages may see their reach, watch time and referral traffic decrease. They will have to produce content that encourages users to react, instead of bland adverts. However, engagement with people will always be prioritized over organizations. Facebook will also be working to demote so-called ‘engagement-bait’, posts that ask for likes or comments as a competition. As a result, you can expect to see more live video content on Facebook. Mosseri says it gets as much as six times the interaction of regular videos. Despite these changes, Facebook doesn’t expect more time spent on its platform. In fact, it expects it to fall. The idea is to make the time spent more meaningful, which has been in demand for some time. However, the lack of exposure also means businesses will be more likely to purchase sponsored posts. That could be very good for Facebook, which makes up to $10 billion in advertising per quarter. It also ties into reports of a subscription-based Facebook news service.
