You’ve likely heard by now that in early January Facebook is deprioritising posts from brands and publishers in users’ news feeds. There are some clear parallels between the two announcements. The common rationale is that content from brands and publishers is detracting from personal relationships on both platforms. Facebook’s update isn’t quite as extreme as Snapchat’s with brands and publishers still sharing the same feed as friends and family. An interesting sign of what’s to come can be seen in the 50 million fewer hours per day being spent on Facebook in markets where viral video content’s presence was down-weighted last quarter.
Safe to say the news feed shakeup has been on the cards for Facebook for some time but Snapchat’s announcement has nudged Facebook to hit the big, red organic social reach hysteria button of its own.
