Plans to make it more family / friends centric
Stung by the accusations that it influenced the Presidential election of 2016, all Social Media companies, have been scrambling to put together a strategy that would make the news that they post more authentic. In other words, Facebook, Twitter, and Google would like to eliminate Fake News from their feeds.
Content producers continue to use other platforms such as YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram.
To this end, Facebook has announced that it will be giving priority to Friends and Family[1]. Publishers have been quick to react. Some have specifically appealed to readers about the change, whether that means directing readers to dedicated mobile apps or offering instructions on how to manually select outlets to “see first” in the feed.
Some took a dig at Facebook saying that it is taking the “News” out of the “Newsfeed”. Be that as it may, normal people don’t see much news in their feeds, unless it is promoted.
Facebook video is not doing well?
Despite heavy promotion, content publishers claim that viewership of pages with Facebook videos has fallen between 8-15% in the last six months of 2017. Content producers continue to use other platforms such as YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram. If digital publishers do not get enough traction on Facebook pages, there is a genuine possibility that they may stop publishing completely on the Facebook platform.
What should Online media sites do?
In my humble opinion, this means that Facebook places a premium on original content and will promote it over curated/ copied content. It also means that Social Media platforms should not be the only way in which online media sites should concentrate on to disseminate their content. The fact of the matter is that all Facebook pages are seeing their Reach go down by 40-50% in the past few months. This will reflect on Facebook’s earnings sooner or later and then the fun will start.
Online media sites would be advised to ensure that their site loads quickly (within 3 seconds). This will make the followers come directly to their site, instead of taking the Social Media route. This is in the final analysis, is the best option for them (Social Media providers will hate me for saying this but hey – this is the reality).
References:
[1] Publishers claim they are taking Facebook News feed changes in their stride – Jan 19, 2018, NiemanLab.Org
His first book NDTV Frauds has been published and is an Amazon Bestseller.It ranked second among all eBooks that were self-published in 2017.
His second book, The Gist of GSTN which too is available on Amazon as an e-Book and as a paperback.
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