Facebook has decided to tweak its Newsfeed algorithm once more.
Text-only Updates Lose
It has been decided that text-only posts originating from Pages contribute to less engagement. They will now show up less in the newsfeeds of fans.
Pretty Pictures Win
Media rich content will be the name of the game for Facebook business Pages going forward.
Review Your Strategy
It’s a good idea to review your content strategy and insure that your brand is posting media rich content or sharing links via the share tool. Plain text updates will not cut it anymore for Facebook Pages.
Text Still Reigns Elsewhere
In our opinion, text is still great for building a brand’s image and to get a story across. In fact, Twitter proves this on a daily basis. Good tweets don’t have to depend upon retweets or fav’s for value. In other words, a lack of clicks does not infer less value. It means there is silent engagement taking place. An image can form from plain text which creates as vivid an impression as a few pixels. I know this, because I see responses from tweets out of the blue from posts that resonate with someone somewhere at sometime. Often, a few simple plain text words have led to some great conversations and new friends.
However, Facebook has incorrectly decided that fewer clicks means less value from text-only posts. They’re going to allow plain text posts from friends and Profiles to still percolate through the newsfeeds, but Pages will need to get more visual and content savvy going forward.
No doubt, Facebook is trying to stem the flow of users from their platform. It has been reported that Facebook lost almost a third of its teen users in 2013. Even the President of the United States recently acknowledged knowing that it seems fewer of them are using Facebook.
The audience of Facebook may be more mature these days, but a lack of teens can be a warning sign of things to come.
Facebook still has value for businesses, but it’s making it harder to get a story across. That’s why we believe it’s necessary not to place all of one’s marketing eggs into one basket.
Twitter still values text and 140 characters is enough to paint vivid pictures with. Where Twitter allows us to post images too, it doesn’t mandate that as a prerequisite to reaching an audience.
Maybe that’s another reason Twitter is the winner of our first Cuppa-T Award.
