Facebook webinar re: January 2018 algorithm changes affecting news publishers
February 2, 2018
Notes by Ned Berke
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(Update 1: All slides from the presentation appear at the end of my notes. Slide screenshots are courtesy of Matt Navarra.)
(Update 2: I’ve turned on commenting. Feel free to leave your thoughts and questions as comments in the doc.)
Recapped reason for changes - nothing new. About “time well spent,” cites studies about mood, etc.
How News Feed works ---
-- Inventory (what’s available)
-- Signals (considerations about content)
-- Predictions (considerations about person)
-- Score
What stories have been posted by your friends and publishers - Inventory
Who posted this story, when was it posted, what time is it, what kind of phone you’re on, internet connection - Signals
How likely are you to comment on this story? How likely to share or like? - Predictions
Relevancy - Score
Now it’s about interactions, and likeliness of shares…
Blue signals are more heavily weighted
Update will now also consider whether interaction is between two people, or person and page
Two people is most meaningful. Weighted towards interactions that show time and care
What’s this mean for pages?
Less likely to see less public content, more content from people they’re connected to[b][c][d].
FB believes this means that their time will be spent on higher quality news[e].
Pages should not focus on engagement baiting by trying to get audiences to comment on posts and can result in demotion of pages.
Articles from publishers that start convos, video series that create tight knit communities, live video that generate more interactions. Live videos get 6x more interactions than regular videos - many reporters go on to prompt discussions among followers - Deb Acosta of NYT is touted, having found kodachrome slides on the street and did a live video, then continued to cover the mystery of who threw them out over the next few weeks
Replying personally to comments is a catalyst and way to create discussion
Groups
Post content that resonates with audiences. Conde Nast Traveler’s Women Who Travel group is touted - split between UGC content and Conde Nast content. Personal travel stories, essay, best practices, etc
-- what kind of content do you have that you can create a community around?
Engagement bait examples
Tracking your performance - see how followers are interacting
Facebook Insights -
Reach --- Reactions, Comments, Shares & More - create a benchmark
When online? Post then, and start discussions
Crowdtangle
Monitor posting frequency
The complete Crowdtangle presentation can be found here, but presented in a different order: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kJ5KX5QyQPvUm6bSLWYQazSHCz9YGBKJ/view
Crowdtangle Chrome Extension
2018 Priorities for News
3 principles for HQ news
Trusted sources (community finds trustworthy)
Informative content (people told us they find informative)
Local news
How we find a source is trustworthy
-- polling FB communities - thought it was most objective and made most sense for FB -- we ask them with 2 question survey - first Q is “are you aware of pub?” if no, they don’t get to vote. If yes, they’re asked “how trustworthy do you find this pub?” 5 point scale
-- efforts to ensure it’s not biased -- sampling diverse and representative set of people - not only asking people who read pub, broader group than that.
Informative content --- prioritize news ppl have told us they find informative -- no product announcement yet, but this is a principle that’s guiding us in 2018
Local -- news that is relevant to their local community -- rolled out this week, introducing ranking signal to newsfeed where if you’re in specific area we’re going to show you more content from that area. No constraints on which publishers are eligible. Local will benefit, but larger can also benefit, especially around lifestyle, arts, etc….
Testing dedicated section for “Today In” -- 6 US cities, more coming in coming months
-------------------
Why can’t you tell us if we’re a trusted source? Not sharing now, 1) it may be unhelpful to share a snapshot of performance on one ranking signal. It’s one of many signals. High trust score vs low trust score not determinative of your reach ---- 2) it’s too new, still developing it ----
Be clearer on engagement bait -- “See first” request is NOT engagement bait. Engagement bait won’t hurt a page unless it happens repeatedly over time
Meaningful interactions will drive reach, regardless of page vs profile, but all things being equal will weight interactions from a profile over a page. Overall message is pages can still drive interactions and if you’re using a page for benefits it has, you should continue.
How about profiles with follow option available -- indie journalists, etc. A profile is still a profile, and you should turn on “Follow” option. You will be considered higher up than a page.
Is getting tagged in a post a meaningful interaction? No. Liking, sharing, commenting, reacting, sharing on Messenger. But NOT tagging.[m][n][o][p]
To gain access to CT - reach out to FB Partner Manager - that will kick off onboarding process. We will put you into CT training and work with you as reps
Will we see IA less in newsfeed? --- IA is not affected any differently than other types of content. The meaningful interaction change, Local change, affects all post types equally, and IA the same way.
A share is a meaningful interaction. High weight thing with a piece of content. One off the stronger ones.
Still developing best practices. Will highlight some partners in the News Media & Publishing group.
Interacting with groups via a page affect page performance? Groups for pages just draws link between the two, but it’s not affecting your page performance. If there are a lot of interactions within group, then group will do well on newsfeed.
Meaningful interaction change only affects organic content, not paid content at all. Comments and shares won’t affect distribution of the paid posts.
ALL SLIDES
(courtesy of Matt Navarra - https://twitter.com/MattNavarra)
[a]Does this basically mean, that organic reach will from now on be more based on virality?
[b]But what if people are talking about "news" that isn't factual, or they are only talking about news from one source? Won't this potentially silo and insulate content?
[c]_Marked as resolved_
[d]_Re-opened_
[e]It seems to me this also means that nothing will burst your filter bubble anymore. In extreme cases, this might result in insulation from commonly accepted reality. Take conspiracy theorists and consumers of extremist media outlets for instance.
[f]post typos. folks hate typos and will comment like mad that you spelled something wrong. :)
[g]:P
[h]What happens if you are reminding people to vote in an upcoming election? Is the word "vote" banned?
[i]Good q...
[j]Or what if you are asking for product specific purposes? For example, when I did social at Keurig, we would regularly ask the audience to vote on colors for brewers and then we'd make the winning brewer. Fans loved that they had a say in the outcome.
[k]+clking@hubspot.com can't you use the poll function for that?
[l]You can, and it looks like they have added better visual functionality to it since I last ran a poll. I'm hoping they don't penalize words like "vote" when using a poll...is it a broad brush or do they take the type of interaction into account?
[m]Is this for both commenting and posting? Or do comment tags count as meaningful?
[n]My interpretation of the response was that tagging - either in the post or in the comment - isn't meaningful. Which is kind of bull, because tagging someone in a comment thread has similar user intent of using the share button and sending it to their wall of via messenger.
[o]That said, tagging in a comment is still a comment, and will bring the person back to (hopefully) comment - sending more engagement signals to FB.
[p]But if persons don´t comment after beeing tagged it´s not meaningful. And tagging "destroys" the comment section, too. Fair adjustment in my opinion.