How to Take Advantage of Facebook's New Algorithm

Facebook's Edgerank is evolving: There are now over 100,000 criteria that factor into what a fan sees on their Newsfeed on a daily basis. Details on such factors are hard to come by, but there is new insight on what goes into Facebook's latest algorithm/ranking system based off of a survey of current users.

To summarize, Facebook is making it easier to determine what content is higher quality -- and what is not. Now, digital marketers will need to keep an extra close eye on content that is trustworthy, pertinent and useful for the fan in order to stay at the top of a Newsfeed.

Here's how you can make sure your content stands out:

1. Create Quality Posts: Facebook is an incredibly intertwined community and therefore, the content pushed out to fans should help keep it feeling that way. As a result, the copy that goes along with a photo or link should be engaging and keep your audience wanting more. Does your company answer the following questions (as asked by Facebook)? Would you share it with friends or recommend it to others? Would you call this a low quality post or meme? Would you complain about seeing this content in your News Feed?
2. Concentrate on True Engagement: Before, asking fans to "Like" a post or "Share" a link typically got fans to engage. However, Facebook has now implemented rules around such requests of fans which may come with negative metric results. Therefore, be extra mindful of the content that you are posting, as it should organically get fans to engage -- and come back for more in the future.
3. Offer Various Types of Posts: If you didn't know, many Facebook Pages relied on image-heavy post to obtain great engagement in the past and thus, received more eyes on their content. Today, Facebook has made many changes to how other types of content is being seen. For example, they recently updated how links are displayed in the Newsfeed (FB increased the size of the image in the links), hence why marketers need to rethink the type of content that they are typically using. If your company only pushes images, you may be negatively effected by not reaching the majority of your fans who may prefer text-only or posts with links.

Lastly, there have been additional edits to Edgerank that may also effect if and how your content is being seen by fans on Facebook. Story Bumping, for instance, moves past posts to the top of a fan's Newsfeed if they did not see it before. Such stories are chosen based on who posted the content and the connection between said company/person and the fan at hand. For now, we've only seen it being used between fans, but this is evidence of the direction that Facebook is currently headed. As we've noted, Facebook is now providing fans with the posts that they find most useful or entertaining, versus a random Newsfeed of information.

Takeaway: Although we're thrilled that Facebook is making the necessary changes to make sure the content a fan sees is relevant and valuable, this makes it more difficult (but not impossible) for a marketer or company to be successful on this popular platform. Take the above tips into consideration and the Newsfeed will take notice!

-- Samantha & Mike

Why People Overshare Online

We all have the friends on Facebook or Twitter who overshare the details of their lives with the rest of the internet. They're the type of people who consistently update statuses and feel the need to share every detail of their lives -- from what they last ate for lunch to their opinion of their favorite TV show. Although it's certainly their right, what makes it so easy to overshare on social media platforms?

Author and social scientist, Sherry Turkle, believes after one shares feelings or thoughts in a public space, the brain's neurochemical reward system is automatically triggered. This action, in addition to the idea that our private lives are constantly being infiltrated by reality TV and social media, adds to an innate urge to share.

In the most recent paper by Russell W. Belk titled "Extended Self in a Digital World," he argues that people's relationships with social media sites are ultimately allowing us to create a more complicated concept of who we believe we are as individuals. With the addition of various platforms that let us be creative through status updates, highly-edited pictures and funny videos, Belk says that humans are able to create a unique, desired identity in a space that makes us feel 'invisible.' Consequently, when individuals believe no one is listening or watching behind a screen, they gain more confidence to divulge personal details about their lives that wouldn't typically be shared in normal day to day life.

Overall, it's clear that the line between private and public is quickly disappearing with each status, tweet and Instagrammed photo. People want to be interesting, popular and cool. They want to be heard and respected -- and will often give up such self-respect to feel valued by their peers. But how far is too far? And how much worse will it get as our world continues to highlight reality stardom and materialistic values?

Tell us: How much do you share via social media? 

-- Samantha

Facebook Releases New User Data

We had recently done a piece on how Facebook is getting ready to sell video advertisements on their platform. In order to create some hype among advertisers, Facebook released some recent user data for the U.S. and UK. Get ready for this:

More than 128 million people in the U.S. visit Facebook at least once a day. That's a third of the population! Also, in the UK, about 24 million people visit the social media website everyday.

Of course these numbers are pretty staggering on their own, but another important thing to take away from this announcement, is that this is one of the first times Facebook has released regional data. This is significant to TV advertisers, who rely heavily on those breakdowns. Facebook is trying to show all the advertisers out there just how many people they can reach on a daily basis.

At $66.3 billion estimated to go towards TV ads this year, or 39% of all advertising spent in the U.S., there is some serious money to be made by Facebook. Although these daily user number are no doubt impressive, advertising analysts would like to see more granularity before they can really put a value on Facebook's reach. For the first time ever, researchers say the average time spent on digital media will surpass TV viewing this year.

We can all see where  TV advertising is going and it is no surprise that Facebook is on the forefront. Sure there will be some backlash from user over having video ads in their newsfeed, but after seeing the potential revenues for Facebook in this new field, we expect to see them take TV advertising head-on.

-Mike & Samantha

Facebook to Launch Video Ads

Facebook users will have a whole new reason to complain any day now as the social media giant plans to roll out video ads on your Newsfeed. As if your Newsfeed isn't already cluttered enough with various ads and promotions, Facebook's new video ads will be 15-second commercials that automatically play as soon as the site is loaded. Thankfully the ads will be muted as a default, but we are not so confident this convenient feature will last for long.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook is planning to charge between $1 million and $2.5 million for each 15-second ad, per day! Prices like that put these Facebook ads on the same level as the most notoriously expensive advertisements in the world, Super Bowl commercials. With the average 30-second commercial costing $4 million during the 2013 Super Bowl, Facebook's pricing seems to be right on track. Is your Newsfeed as valuable to marketers as the Super Bowl? According to Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandburg, with Facebook getting 3 times the viewership of the Super Bowl, EVERY DAY, it most certainly is. Now are you and your friends going to gather around your Newsfeed in anticipation for clever ads like on Super Bowl Sunday? We would think not. However, with the sheer numbers advantage alone, Facebook has a lot to offer its future advertising clients. 

Like any change on Facebook, there is sure to be complaints from its users. We think these video ads will create a larger backlash than normal, primarily depending on how annoying and intrusive Facebook allows these ads to be. However, like all the other changes Facebook has gone through over the years, give it a little bit of time, and most users will eventually accept it as normal.

Is this the right move for Facebook? With growing discontent among its users, we think it is dangerous for Facebook to continually hurt the user experience it has prided itself on since day one. However, on the other hand, we can see how saying no to the profit Facebook will see off these ads would be hard for any capitalistic company. Only time will tell if the monetary gains outweigh the potential loss in users due to this advertising decision.

-Mike & Samantha

Let the Integration Continue

It seems there has been an ever increasing trend lately to integrate as many services into other services as possible. The latest in this trend is Yahoo's move to incorporate Twitter into its news stream. This is not a very surprising move, considering how important Twitter has become to news sources. Consistently proving to be the go-to source for the latest breaking news, Twitter has become a considerable asset in this field. Here is a quote from Yahoo's CEO: "Updates direct from politicians, celebrities, media outlets, and other publishers have become an important source of real-time news and information. 140 characters can connect athletes with their fans, capture live chatter from the red carpet, and inspire global debate... so we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Twitter to bring Tweets directly into the Yahoo newsfeed."

As you can see below, tweets from sources like ABC News will start to appear in the news feed.

This new feature will continue to roll out to all U.S. users over the next couple of days. We think this trend towards integration is great and will only continue to make everyone's lives easier and more convenient.

-Mike