July 2015 - TSO Media

The 2015 Facebook Algorithm Change

Back in April, when Facebook updated its algorithm back in April (2015), rather than simply post what changed, I decided to break down what each change in the latest Facebook algorithm meant for brand pages. I stated at the time that “(f)or some brands, this latest Facebook algorithm change will be a major benefit” for brand pages who post good content, drive interaction and engagement with their fan base and are truly social will see big gains.”

My question two months later? Did your brand actually benefit? There is more than enough anecdotal evidence in my personal feed alone (backed up by page insights) to make some general conclusions regarding the impact of the latest change. Brand pages who posted good content drove interaction and engagement with their fan base and were truly social saw big gains from April’s Facebook algorithm change.

I spent a good deal of time recently scrolling through my personal feed tallying posts and looking at the content and ‘publisher’. Combined with the activity I’ve noticed on close to two dozen pages I manage/admin over the past couple of months, what I am seeing is a clear win for brand pages.

Recap: The three significant Facebook algorithm changes

Significant Facebook Algorithm Change: Posts about friends liking or commenting on a page’s content will be pushed down the news feed.

The Anecdotal Evidence: Just looking at my personal feed, posts about what my friends like and comment on is all but gone. I ran through 25 posts (my feed is defaulted to ‘recent stories’) just yesterday afternoon and found only 1. It was the first time in several weeks I can recall seeing stories about friends liking or even commenting on content from others. I have seen more shares, however. I posted previously that the removal of ‘like and comment’ stories could hurt brands (liking your own content, leveraging a few friends or ‘core fans’ to like posts for visibility was a short-term tactic many employed to get visibility) and this has proven to be the case. The flip side – shared content is now more likely to be seen, even if it’s shared by someone who is constantly posting!

I do want to add for several pages I manage, comments on posts DO have a positive impact on reach. I tracked a few posts over a 24 hour period, then commented as myself and tagged another individual to comment as well. Within a few hours, post reach tripled. To avoid the possibility that the posts were already viral, relevant or otherwise ‘Top Stories’ I purposely posted at off times based on page insights and in some cases, content was truly irrelevant to the brand’s audience. Most of the posts saw an initial reach of single digits or low double digits.

Since post reach is only a measure of how many see a specific piece of content in their feed either Facebook is choosing to show comments and likes at random, is counting views in the ticker as feed views, or quite possibly, Facebook is toying with ‘influencers’ and comments and likes by certain individuals affect what you see in your feed (similar to how your connections and influencers in Google+ affect SERPs).

Significant Facebook Algorithm Change: Facebook will allow multiple content from individual publishers to show in your feed.

The Anecdotal Evidence: In that same string of 25 posts I found one instance of multiple posts from the same author. This morning, with the next 25 posts I looked at, there were 3 by one author. Over the past two weeks, I have consistently seen multiple content from individual publishers.

What makes what I’m seeing more impressive? In many cases, it hasn’t just been multiple content from individual publishers. It’s been multiple content from brand pages!

Significant Facebook Algorithm Change: Trying to balance the content you see in the right mix.

The Anecdotal Evidence: This one can be a little harder to quantify as I’m not sure if ‘content mix’ referred to brand vs individual, content type (video, link, image) or a combination. I can tell you my feed is still more heavily video posts, but I am seeing more links and text only posts than previously.

Interesting note – I’ve seen overall video views decrease for pages with smaller fan bases since the latest Facebook algorithm change.

With respect to individuals vs brands, I think Facebook has done a better job of showing a mix. While I can run through my feed at any given time and only see a handful of brand page posts (2 in 25 as I am writing this) I have seen brand posts dominate my feed. Remember that 25 post reference above? Fifteen of those 25 posts were from brand pages!

I’ve run a few tests purposely posting when I know certain fans are online and without prompting they’ve been liking that content. Without question brand page posts are much more likely to show in feeds since the April Facebook algorithm update. What I found most telling – I now see content from my own pages in my feed!

The Insights

Of course, anecdotal evidence only tells part of the story. I pulled insights for posts on the Tactical Social Media brand page activity for January through April and then again for May through mid-July.

There is a very noticeable spike in activity at the end of April, and while that level wasn’t sustained in later months, there was a noticeable increase in post engagement after the latest algorithm update.

To be fair, there are still plenty of low points (I do experiment with my own posting tactics) but there was clearly an increase in overall post engagement since algorithm update. What stood out was the jump in posts seeing more than 10 points of engagement.

With only 149 fans on the page at this point and only a few increases per week, page likes didn’t contribute to the numbers and as I have generally only posted once daily over the past 6 months, the increases aren’t attributable to frequency.

The April 2015 Facebook algorithm change is a ‘win’ for brand page owners.

My Take

While this is not a real study by any means, the April 2015 Facebook algorithm change is a ‘win’ for brand page owners. It isn’t, however, a return the ‘post it and they’ll see it days’ of the past. I mentioned purposely posting content at odd times and of irrelevant content to limit reach – well, reach WAS limited. While the change helps, “Brand pages who post good content, drive interaction and engagement with their fan base and are truly social will see big gains.”

Benefiting from the update still requires:

Posting timely, relevant and shareable content (#BeTactical)
Driving interaction and engagement, and being engaged (#BeSocial)
Posting timely – it’s critical you regularly monitor your insights to find the best times for you to post)
Posting consistently

Facebook Organic Reach = {(Quality Content + Post Timing) x Post Frequency} + Engaged Fans
Where Quality Content = Content x (Relevant + Timely + Sharable)
Where Engaged Fans = Active Fans / Total Fans

What’s Your Take?

Are you seeing more page stories in your personal feed? Have you seen any increase in post reach? Do you think the April 2015 Facebook algorithm change has helped? If not, could it just be your content or posting strategy/tactics?

Content Monitoring vs Brand Monitoring

A few weeks back I published an article on LinkedIn (updated here last week) asking people to stop monitoring for brand mentions. Clearly, I don’t want you to stop. You need to pay attention to what others are saying about you, when they’re saying it and where. More importantly, you need to be aware that conversations are taking place about you and your brand yet many of them never mention your name. Brand monitoring is only one aspect of your brand reputation management efforts. If you aren’t monitoring for content mentions, you’re missing a critical component.

In my LinkedIn post, I pointed out the need for monitoring your content as a tool to catch theft and plagiarism. I routinely monitor for phrases, keywords and article titles as well as my name, ‘Tactical Social Media’ and my branded hashtag #BeTactical. As a result, I caught an outright case of unauthorized use of my content and was able to take down the blog post and shares on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Since neither I nor my brand was mentioned in the post, content monitoring was the ONLY way I could have found it.

Content monitoring goes a step further, however than just catching theft.

Why You Should Be Monitoring For Content in Social Media

Content Monitoring – Insights and Opportunities

Insights: If you’re content monitoring, you gain valuable insights into what content is being shared. Content monitoring, combined with Google Analytics and social sharing metrics, provides a very clear picture of what content is best received, where it’s shared from (I contribute to a number of sites), where it’s being shared to, what’s driving viewers back and what other’s are saying about it.

With content monitoring, I know exactly what content to write on for future articles (though I still like to write as much on what I feel is important), what points to explore further and even if I need to rethink some of my ideas. Insights gained help me tailor what I write based on the audience of a particular site or social channel.

Opportunities: As I said earlier, not everyone will mention or tag you or your brand when sharing your articles. Content monitoring prevents lost opportunities. The fact that someone is shared your content is important. They read it and liked what you had to say enough to pass it into their audience. You want to leverage that fact. You already have their attention. You want to keep it. One of the best ways to do that is simply acknowledging them. That’s hard to do if you don’t know they’ve shared or interacted with it in the first place.

While I would have caught shares of my article this morning even if I wasn’t content monitoring. (It did hit for my brand as well as the blog title (‘Leveraging Facebook Authorship’), the only reason for that happening was due to an anomaly. For this article, I included the brand name as part of the title for SEO purposes. I normally do not as character length is limited. What I would have lost missing this?

My article was initially shared twice on Twitter, once by Jose Javier Garde and once by Personal Branding, then reshared 5 more times. In the end, the first share by Jose Javier Garde was favorited 12 times and ReTweeted 6 times. That’s great exposure for my content.

I was able to favorite each of the initial shares and Tweet out a couple of ‘thank yous’. While not saying ‘thank you’ isn’t necessarily being unsocial or unappreciative – the fact is most don’t – doing so makes you stand out. Jose knows I appreciated his sharing my content. That makes him more likely to follow my blog, get on my mailing list, follow my social profiles and share my content in the future. That’s a huge relationship building opportunity as well as future visibility.

That simple thank you to Jose, however, actually generated some great exposure of its own. It was favorited 9 times and ReTweeted 4 times! Content monitoring generated some phenomenal visibility and huge relationship building opportunities.

The Take-Away

In this case, and in several others I catch daily, while there is a huge upside to knowing my content had been reshared, not knowing wouldn’t have hurt me…at least financially. But what if the content shared was preceded by something negative? What if someone had tweeted a link to my content and stated the ‘author clearly doesn’t get social media’?

While I firmly believe you should respond to all interactions on your content (if they took the time to interact, the least you can do is acknowledge it), not responding to negative posts/reviews leaves your reputation at risk.

If you’re not content monitoring, why not?

Archive for month: July, 2015