Facebook's New Newsfeed Rules

[john.quinn]

Please correct me if I'm wrong: The new Newsfeed algorythm is bad for dealers.

The way I understant the new formula, what you see on your newsfeed is kinda like what you see when you perform an internet search -- results/news based on a relevancy formula, right?

So you are going to see friends' posts at the top based on interactions, likes, frequency, etc. So for pages/businesses that don't get a whole lot of interactions, likes, frequent visits, this doesn't help.

I don't think a whole lot of dealerships have a high concentration of the above attributes.

Am I reading this correctly?

 

[Chris Cachor]

You're correct that the algorithm is designed to show you status updates from your closest groups of friends. I'd imagine they've taken this even further with the re-designs so users don't complain about their news feeds being spammed and allow more room for targeted advertising.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Found this great article on the subject - Does Facebook’s News Feed Punish Advertisers (Yet)?

discoveries suggest that Facebook’s latest upgrades may have a detrimental impact on advertising revenues, which just might motivate the site to rejigger things, fast.

One of the article comments: "It's a major problem for us as an agency, and for our brands. Our clients are spending major $$$ on Fb ads that drive traffic to their pages, and more $$$ on custom content for those pages. If activity on that content isn't posted to user newsfeeds, why would be spend on ads that push to the pages. Instead, we should be spending the money beefing up the viral items on the website and abandon the FB ads altogether. "

What do you think?

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Another article - this one from Mashable.

What Facebook's Changes Mean for Marketers

" The big loser? The “Like,” which will have a smaller role in marketing, industry analysts say."

"Since users now have more control over their news feeds, brands with boring or irrelevant updates will have lower visibility."

I'm telling you right now, the challenge Facebook is placing upon business/Car Dealerships is a challenge MOST will not have an answer for.

"Marketers, who have been told for years that they’re actually publishers now, will have to put that into practice, says Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, a digital marketing firm."

Dealers are NOT publishers and unless you are one very progressive dealership, you have not and likely will not in the future break the mold and voyage outside the rules placed inside the ledger that would allow the hiring for this internally. Not happening.

If dealers want to succeed in Social (and I do believe it is possible), most will need to outsource. But outsourcing for the sake of outsources isn't going to get the job done to the degree a business will need into to be truly successful. In order for it to work, many out of the box initiatives, social marketing campaigns and social nurturing will NEED to happen. A very tight relationship between the dealership and the outsourced social agency will be crucial.

Where does this budget come from? Dealers still struggle with getting their paid search and SEO strategy on par - that's if they have one.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

"The change will require new thinking from marketers who had merely tried to accumulate as many fans and “Likes” as possible. Jenna Lebel,managing director of strategy at Likeable Media, says the “Like” is “a little less relevant now,” and that marketers will have to work harder to earn their place in news feeds. “Your content is going to need to be absolutely amazing,” she says."

Riiiiight...

 

[john.quinn]

Really kinda fascinating, from a business standpoint. Other than promoting regional/national brands, I don't think a business exists that didn't realistically rate Facebook a tertiary -- or less -- status as an advertising entity. I mean, come-on -- except for a few "writers" and vendors, it's been very hard to take Facebook seriously from a business standpoint.

Now that it's even less relevant, think businesses will react by investing more?? Fascinating... going to have to take a good look at this business model...

 

[NickCybela]

In my opinion, in the next three weeks Facebook will become completely irrelevant to dealers UNLESS we can find a good way to develop an application that starts leveraging their new apps strategy and real time pattern discovery. Unfortunately it's unrealistic to think that a dealership will create "interesting" engagement on a large enough scale to turn a positive ROI amidst the rest of the things they're doing.

However, if we can find the answer to three key questions barring most dealerships from creating a customized app then we may find dramatic success where we've struggled before.

I took some notes on the F8 keynote and summarized them here. (Why Facebook doesn't matter for auto dealers - Digital Nick's Automotive Digital Marketing)