Details about Facebook’s Anti-Promotional Content Algorithm Changes

In late 2014, Facebook announced an update to its algorithm that would “punish” posts that were too promotional. There was uncertainty as to what kind of copy would be hit and what punishment would look like. Well, some preliminary numbers from 2 major brands are in, and they are downright scary. Facebook’s rollout of anti-advertising copy is severely punishing Pages with an almost 100% decrease in organic reach. And it’s not just affecting reach in newsfeeds. Here’s what I know so far:

• Organic reach for a major brand went from hundreds of thousands to under 1,000 on some posts starting around early February
• Both brands’ posts aren’t just hidden in newsfeeds, but are invisible to some on the Page’s timeline as well
• Using a link post instead of a photo post slightly alleviated the organic reach issue

Here’s the longer version with details.

Both of these brands have millions of fans and organic reach for them has always been stellar due to fan engagement. They both regularly post about contests and events that require signing up on a website. When the news came out about Facebook’s algorithm update, there was a lot of worrying. It was apparently justified.

Rumor 1: Ad Copy Without Boosts will be Punished Starting Early 2015

Status: Confirmed

Rollout of the algorithm change was rumored to begin in early 2015. Promotional posts for these brands began seeing huge decreases in organic reach during that timeline. Before, posts about contests and sweepstakes had organic reach of 100,00 to 250,000 people. Seemingly overnight, similar posts were barely reaching 20,000.

Rumor 2: The Negative Effect on Reach will be Gradual

Status: Denied

Facebook said themselves that marketers who use promotional copy in Page posts “should expect their organic distribution to fall significantly over time.” Clearly, that’s not the case. They got the “significant” part right, but it definitely didn’t happen over time. Unless of course the slashes in organic reach were compounded by the next confirmed rumor.

Rumor 3: Facebook’s Algorithm Might Revert Back to Favoring Link Posts over Photo Posts

Status: Confirmed

There were so many announcements and rumors about changes for Facebook marketing in late 2014 that this one was barely talked about. I read from one or two other marketers that they were seeing slightly improved organic reach on link posts. It only made sense.

When marketers realized that link posts got more reach a while back, Pages were overrun by that post type. Facebook combated it by then prioritizing text-only posts. We caught on so the favoritism went instead to photo posts. Marketers gamed the system by regularly posting correctly-sized photos with shortened links in the descriptions to reach the most fans. It’s about time we get punished for figuring that out, too.

When one of these brands saw such a huge drop in organic reach, I suggested the community manager do the next one as a link post. Lo and behold, that promotional post got an organic reach of almost 50,000! Still a far cry from 200,000, but 150% better than the 20,00 they were getting.

There was just one more problem, though.

Additional Finding: Punished Promotional Posts Aren’t Just Hidden in the Newsfeed

This one is troublesome. I’m personally more worried about this change than the others because at least we had warnings or precedents for those. The link post from before, while it had improved organic reach, wasn’t visible on the Page’s timeline by some employees and friends. There had to be something wrong in the post’s setting, right?

Nope. Multiple people checked the targeting, sharing options and more. Nothing was wrong. According to Facebook’s reach report and the post’s engagement, tens of thousands of people were seeing it. But not everyone. We confirmed that the other brand was having the same issue with multiple posts. The only similarity was the inclusion of “sign up now” and “enter to win” language, so the only conclusion is that affected posts are treated like ads by not showing on Page timelines for everyone.

Mana and I are going to do some further testing and will update this post with our findings.

How to Combat these Facebook Algorithm Changes

The simple answer that’s a win for Facebook and a loss for marketers is to just put dollars behind posts with promotional copy. But we won’t go down without a fight!

Be more creative with the language of your posts. Find ways to call fans to action without using words that trigger the algorithm like “sign up”, “enter here”, “download”, “buy,” etc. There have to be workarounds to avoid the punishment. Sure, history tells us Facebook will catch on and update its algorithm to fight back, but we might as well get what we can now.

Start switching up the types of posts you use. Don’t rely on just one kind or you’ll have to start from scratch again when Facebook eventually changes. Pick your battles and start using link posts’ organic strength for your most important content.

Target your posts to get the most out of them. Segment your audience by location, age, gender, interests– whatever’s most relevant. That way, whatever small percentage of fans organically see your post will be the most likely to engage, click through and convert.