Facebook recently threw yet another curveball at marketers, but this time, it?s a challenge worthy of embracing.
Aiming to improve News Feed, Facebook?s recent algorithm update has nothing to do with relevance, reach or relationship settings. This time, it?s after clickbait.
The social media giant is cracking down on headlines that distort, mislead or altogether withhold information–in other words, stories that bait readers with sensational headlines and then fail to deliver on their promises will appear less frequently in News Feed.
The change follows on the heels of a June update that ranked publisher content less favorably than posts from friends and families. So it?s understandable that some marketers–especially those that rely heavily on Facebook for generating a large volume of website traffic–would be worried. An opportunity to improve
In reality, the update is an invitation to improve your content and step up your marketing efforts. Manipulating readers with anger, anxiety, surprise or other punchy emotions was never a good strategy to begin with. After all, clickbait is essentially a form of bait and switch (hence the name).
So what?s a marketer to do" Focus on posting quality content that people actually care about.
Of course, some clickbait will still make its way onto Facebook. The new algorithm only penalizes publishers with a high ratio of posts with misleading headlines.
But consider this: 80 percent of readers prefer genuine content to...