Whether we love them or hate them, Facebook’s updates are all designed to improve the experience of its users. Next on their target list was the Pages posting huge amounts of Spam. This is the stuff that users have been hiding from their news feed and complaining to Facebook about. These have been defined in three ways; Like-baiting, Spammy Links and Frequently Circulated Content.
Like-baiting
Usually it’s fine to encourage likes and even request them. More engagement means your post gets shown to more people. However in the constant fight for a spotlight in people’s News Feeds, some Pages cross the line into becoming obnoxious. Facebook shared the following image to prove their point.
There’s a difference between posting something to start a discussion and posting something created JUST to gain Likes and comments. So if you’re creating irrelevant images and other content designed to fish for attention then you’re going to witness a sharp decrease in visibility.
Facebook understands that some publishers have the best intentions and assures us that they won’t be punishing Pages that are just trying to lead a conversation.
This update will not impact Pages that are genuinely trying to encourage discussion among their fans, and focuses initially on Pages that frequently post explicitly asking for Likes, Comments and Shares.
Spammy Links
This isn’t so much uninteresting links as it is mis-leading content. There are lots of Pages out there manipulating users in to clicking a link. In some cases users are flat-out lied to, being told that the link leads to a photo album when it actually takes them to a site full of adverts.
The way Facebook works out the fakers from the real deal, is by measuring the ratio of click-throughs to how many Likes and shares the same post will have. Posts that have high click rates but no engagement will most likely be hidden by Facebook. So far this approach seems to have led to a 5% increase in people clicking links that take then off Facebook, which is a considerable chunk already.
Frequently Circulated Content
In a similar way to Like-baiting this one is all about how far Pages cross the line. Facebook expects good content to be posted more than once, however when content is posted over and over and over again, that’s when they’ll step in and stop it. Since they’ve started to “de-emphasise” the Pages that do this, users have hidden 10% fewer stories.
So what does this mean for my Page?
As usual if you are focussed on posting the best content you can (or even just something half-decent) then you’ve got nothing to worry about. These are merely steps to prevent highly aggressive marketing strategies. We’re not entirely sure how Facebook is sussing out things such as Like-bait so the only thing we suggest is to keep an eye on what you post and make sure you’re not being too heavy handed on the “Please Like if…” style posts.
These changes can only be a good thing. By weeding out the Pages using these dirty tactics then that means more room for those of us using the platform properly.
Source: Facebook Newsroom