Facebook was built to bring people closer and build relationships. One of the ways we do this is by connecting with people through Facebook posts from friends and family in News Feed. Was this the case before January 2018?

In the recent feedback which Facebook got from it's community member's was that the posts from businesses, brands and media is crowding out the personal moments that lead them to connect more with each other. As a result, Facebook had a recent algorithm change that will prioritize "meaningful content" from friends and family over contents from brands. This, as a result has made Facebook marketing even more trickier then ever.

We knew this was coming! didn't we?

Before we move ahead, let us quickly go through the changes in Algorithm that Facebook made: These changes are the top ranking factors on News Feed.

1. Reactions: We like more then we love, isn't it? If a content gets reactions like Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry instead of Likes, it is more likely to have a better reach. Facebook wants to see more of such reactions for brands from its followers.
2. Comments: This means, brands now will have to create quality content to ignite conversations with / among followers. In short, users will be more likely to see your Facebook posts if their friends or family are commenting on it.
3. Comment Replies: The algorithm not only favors comments, but also replies to comments. It basically means, create content that engages with users and have a interactive information exchange with the Brand.
4. Engagement on Shares: Sharing is a pretty active engaging activity on Facebook but in order to be prioritized in the algorithm, your shared post must have engagements too.
5. Sharing the post / link to a friend or group via Facebook Messenger: Here's a new thing, If a user shares content on their wall, that’s great. But what’s even better is if they take the time to send it to a friend or group via Facebook Messenger.

What made Facebook take this huge step which ultimately resulted in their share price going down?

1. The mission statement - "To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."
2.  Facebook is running out of place to put ads.
3. Facebook's ad system is an auction process that sets price basis the demand and competition. While the competition is high and the demand goes up everyday, only advertiser which focus on relevancy and engaging post will survive.

As a result:

• The growth on impression has declined while the cost of impressions has increased.

• The Organic reach will keep going down.
• Reactions, comments & shares will be the main indicators of “meaningful interactions”.
• Users will see more "Quality over quantity" posts.

The bigger picture.

With everything said and done about the algorithm change that favors post from friends and family over brands, one cannot deny that the decision taken by Facebook was for survival. One just cannot forget that survival of a business solely depends on its customers/users satisfaction. And if you look in the past, you can learn great lesson from Yahoo which tried chasing money and lost the market control. On the other hand, Google kept it simple by providing relevant information and captured the market.

Facebook, in my opinion, is going the Google way. They are following their Vision & Mission statement and focusing more on its user satisfaction. As a result Facebook saw a huge boost in its revenue.

The Conclusion

With the first quarter being extremely successful for Facebook, it is still very difficult to predict its future. The growth of a business is indicated by its growth in revenue and to keep growing you must keep changing.

Change is inevitable! If you do not change with time, time will change you.

We can expect more changes from Facebook in the future and only time will tell what those changes would result in. As of now, I firmly believe that Facebook is on the right track.

I would love to know your thoughts on the same :)

As they say, Make your customer/user happy and let the money follow.