Facebook held their annual F8
conference last week where Mark Zuckerberg unveiled some of the new design
& structural changes to the website to make social interaction more
seamless & relevant. All the changes were not unveiled at F8, however, and
some were rolled out earlier last week such as Ticker, Friends Lists, and a whole new updated News Feed. And with these updates, they have changed the
game once again. These changes have a massive impact on the way people interact
with their friends, acquaintances, and different Brands & Fan Pages on
Facebook. So let’s take a closer look at what’s changed.
The News Feed has been totally
revamped in a way that it puts the most
relevant content up front &
center, while the rest of the updates are pushed to the bottom of the feed
where they are assorted chronologically. That puts an enormous pressure on Brands
& Pages who use Facebook to interact with their consumers, to stay relevant
to their target audience now. Previously, the way things worked was that
once a user had Liked a Page, they were basically hooked. Your update would
essentially appear in their News Feed one way or another. True, Top News feature
existed, but it wasn’t that much effective or given that much importance in the
design itself.
But now EdgeRank, Facebook’s algorithm that determines what’s really of interest to a user, has basically become
the heart & soul of new Facebook. If the content is not relevant,
it gets booted to the bottom of the pile, while a soggy joke from that lame website
would take its place if it manages to generate more engagement from the user
over time.
What this means for Brands, is that the total number of Likes on your Page has become all but a rather insignificant statistical figure. If a Page is sharing content that
is not directly relevant to their
target users, these fans will not
interact with the Page, and their updates will be swept down into the noise
bucket along with that middle school friend of yours you only talk to
on his birthday. This new system puts much emphasis on Brands to produce, publish, and share more and
more relevant content that reaches exactly its target audience and
generates maximum interactions in
order to stay in touch with their fans over time. Now the game is not only to
be interesting enough to get a Like from a user, it puts extra emphasis on staying
relevant in order to be in touch with the Fans. That engagement may
come in the form of interesting status
updates, high quality content
such as Videos, Games, or other interactive apps, or just even a picture that can entice a user’s
interest.
There is absolutely no doubt in
my mind that Social is the new face of
Internet, and any and all businesses, services, or tools with hope for a
future on internet absolutely must have a Social Strategy as part of their core design. This change
in Facebook interface heralds the true transformation of Internet into a more feasible, interesting, and applicable Social environment that cuts out the
noise, and brings users only what you need to see. The web is expanding at an exponential rate, and
average user’s attention span is shrinking fast. Therefore, staying relevant & optimizing the interaction is the key
to a successful Social Media strategy.
Lazy Social Media Managers beware: Constant Vigilance be the only cure!
