Businesses with Facebook Pages should expect to see their post reach fall significantly, with the social media giant announcing that they will lower the amount of Page posts users will see in their News Feeds.
From January 2015, Facebook is to introduce new volume and content controls for promotional posts, which they say will enable users to have more power over what posts appear on their News Feeds.
According to a recent Facebook news release, a recent survey conducted by the company found that people feel Page posts are more promotional than actual advertisements.
The company claims the hundreds of thousands of people surveyed pointed to posts with the following three traits as being too promotional:
– Posts pushing people to buy a product or install an app.
– Posts pushing people to enter competitions and promotions without context.
– Posts using the same content as advertisements.
Facebook said that businesses with posts consisting of this type of content would notice a significant drop in distribution, but that “the majority of Pages will not be impacted by this change”.
“This change will not increase the number of ads people see in their News Feeds,” Facebook said. “The idea is to increase the relevance and quality of the overall stories – including Page posts – people see in their News Feeds. This change is about giving people the best Facebook experience possible and being responsive to what they have told us.”
Facebook’s third quarter Financial Summary reported $3.2 billion in revenue, a 59 per cent growth from the same period last year, with advertising revenue totaling $2.96 billion, a 64 per cent growth from last year.
“This has been a good quarter with strong results,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “We continue to focus on serving our community well and continue to invest in connecting the world over the next decade.”
