Many Facebook page owners have expressed their unhappiness about how often their posts show up in the news feed for certain users. And now the site is doing something about it.
Facebook recently launched a new pages-only newsfeed, where users can see only the updates from the brand pages they’ve liked, including businesses, celebrities, and other brands.
The “Pages Feed” link appears on the left hand sidebar of the home page. In the above photo, you can see where users can click over to the Pages Feed, and what the feed itself looks like.
Like the traditional news feed, Facebook uses an algorithm to find the most relevant pages and post for each user. So this new feed still won’t ensure that all followers of a page will see every post, even if they do regularly check their Pages Feed.
Overall, users still have the same controls as with their regular news feeds, like hiding posts and choosing to follow activity on a particular post. Some posts from brand pages will continue to show up on the traditional news feed as well.
For businesses that use Facebook Pages, this move could allow posts to be seen by more relevant users, provided they actually visit the Pages Feed. For that to happen, page owners will need to post relevant and noteworthy content in order for people to care enough to click over, but this has always been true for the most part.
Facebook has stated that this change was brought about because of requests from both page owners and news feed users, and not because of criticism for how Facebook has handled the way posts from pages appear in the news feed in an effort to encourage brands to buy Promoted Posts or other advertising products.
Before the Pages Feed was introduced, many of these posts were seen only by a small percentage of people who follow the page because of the relevancy algorithm Facebook uses.
How many people do you think are currently checking that feed (I admit I don’t)?
Ti Roberts
This is news to me. And, I don’t think I’d ever check that feed either.
Linda
I was thinking the same thing, it’s like offering newspaper readers the option to read only the adverts.
Yeah like Robert I never check that feed either. I suspect not many people actually do.
Rahul Varshneya @rahulvarshneya.com
It is a well documented fact for social websites and apps that the page that users are made to land on (the landing page) is the page 80% will stick to and not click on other page links.
This seems a half-hearted attempt at a solution for the ire that Facebook is facing with regards to updates.
Of course, by no means will they let go of it completely as that will impact their revenues, since this is a new channel that has opened up, but they definitely need to look at a better solution.
Alice
I’ve been wondering where my coupons from B & N, Outback Steak, L’Occitane, etc. have gone. It’s a real pain to have to check another spot, Pages Feed. It worked better before for me. Wish Facebook would give us the option of how all this shows on OUR page.