Will Changes To Facebook's News Feed Make It Harder To Promote Your Radio Station Or Show?

Problems Ahead For Radio?

Will recent changes to FACEBOOK's news feed policy make it harder for radio stations to stay in touch with listeners and promote events and contests?

Perhaps, writes CNET, "Want to promote something on FACEBOOK? Buy an ad. That's the logical conclusion for businesses after the social network said it will reduce the number of 'promotional' messages showing up in users' information streams, known as News Feeds. Companies that previously sent advertisements from their free FACEBOOK Pages now face a harder time reaching fans."

FACEBOOK announced a new policy designed to clean up users news feeds last week. They wrote, "One of the main reasons people come to FACEBOOK is to see what’s happening in their News Feeds. Our goal with News Feed has always been to show people the things they want to see. That’s why we often look to people on FACEBOOK to tell us how we can improve. As part of an ongoing survey we asked hundreds of thousands of people how they feel about the content in their News Feeds. People told us they wanted to see more stories from friends and Pages they care about, and less promotional content.

"We dug further into the data to better understand this feedback. What we discovered is that a lot of the content people see as too promotional is posts from Pages they like, rather than ads. This may seem counterintuitive but it actually makes sense: News Feed has controls for the number of ads a person sees and for the quality of those ads (based on engagement, hiding ads, etc.), but those same controls haven’t been as closely monitored for promotional Page posts. Now we’re bringing new volume and content controls for promotional posts, so people see more of what they want from Pages.

"Beginning in JANUARY 2015, people will see less of this type of content in their News Feeds. As we’ve said before, News Feed is already a competitive place – as more people and Pages are posting content, competition to appear in News Feed has increased. All of this means that Pages that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall significantly over time."

Lori Lewis: 'There's Nothing Easy About This'

ALL ACCESS' MERGE contributing author and JACOBS MEDIA Dir./Digital and Social Strategies LORI LEWIS, shared this observation, "This message couldn't be any louder to brands -- if you want to promote something, buy an ad. It's time to learn how to be real visual communicators.

"People don't want to be sold in their News Feed, they want to feel welcome. They crave content they relate to. Time to figure it out. And there's nothing wrong with asking for help in how to do it. Just because FACEBOOK is 'free,' does not equate to being easy. There's nothing easy about this."

ALL ACCESS has contacted FACEBOOK for further explanation on this new policy and how it might affect radio.

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