The days of Facebook Inc. being a platform marketers could use to market to consumers without paying for ads will end with the new year.
The social network’s latest change to its news feed algorithm that determines what consumers see in their news feeds will minimize the number of consumers who see a brand’s organic posts if they are too promotional. Facebook says it will make the change in January.
“News feed is already a competitive place–as more people and pages are posting content, competition to appear in news feed has increased,” Facebook writes in a blog post. “All of this means that pages that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall significantly over time.”
Facebook says that the change is the result of user surveys of “hundreds of thousands” that found consumers want the news feed to feature more stories from friends and pages they care about rather than promotional messages such as posts encouraging users to buy a product or install an app, enter promotions or that reuse the same content featured in ads.
However, the change will not impact the number of ads users see in the news feed.
The change, along with other recent moves by Facebook that minimize organic posts’ reach, is forcing teen apparel and accessories retailer Charlotte Russe to adjust the way it approaches the platform, says Kristen Strickler, the merchant’s social media and public relations manager.
“We’re seeing our numbers dip down as low as .1% total reach on organic posts,” she says. “That’s forcing us to be mindful about what we can post that will have a high engagement rate because we know that’s one way to extend a post’s reach. We’re also spending a lot of time optimizing posting times. But there’s no doubt about it, Facebook is a real challenge.”
The challenge is that the social network has steadily reduced the number of unpromoted brand posts consumers see in their news feeds. The percentage of shoppers who see a brand’s typical Facebook post is half what it was a year ago, according to the latest Adobe Digital Index, which is based on data gathered from thousands of Adobe Systems Inc.’s retail clients. And that continues a shift by Facebook to limit the percentage of shoppers who see unpromoted posts. While 16.0% of a brand’s fans saw a brand’s post in February 2012, that percentage fell to 6.5% in March 2014, according to news feed optimization service Edgerank Checker.
Mark Zuckerberg, the social network’s founder and CEO, said earlier this month that while a typical Facebook user could potentially view 1,500 updates a day, he sees only about 100. That means businesses that want to appear in that feed need to produce “really good content that’s going to be compelling to your customers.”