The last few weeks have seen the online community bristling over Facebook’s new experimental feeds format, which sorts posts from pages into a new Explore feed. It’s had drastic effects on organic reach, although paid posts remain, as expected, on the main newsfeed. Meanwhile, Instagram has tweaked its own ad practices with a change in graphics, while LinkedIn has implemented autoplay on videos. Read on for details.
Feeds, Fees, and Facebook’s Experiments
Facebook recently confirmed that they have been testing an alternative newsfeed setup that separates content from users’ friends and those from pages or other publishers. In the experimental setup, users’ newsfeeds show exclusively posts from their Facebook friends, while posts from publishers show up in the Explore Feed. The Explore Feed’s current function is to show users content they may like based on their past Facbook activity.
The test has been rolled out to six countries thus far: Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Bolivia, Guatemala and Cambodia. Effects on organic reach and activity in those areas have been drastic. Pages have reported losses of up to two-thirds of organic reach and three-fourths of interactions. Paid posts, however, are exempt from the sorting scheme and remain on the primary newsfeed.
According to Facebook, the test was meant to allow users to find posts from their contacts more easily, a feature that has been in significant demand. The media giant has also stressed that the alternative feed setup is an experiment that they currently have no plans of rolling out internationally.
Instagram’s Innocuous Ads
While Facebook’s experiment renders their paid posts more conspicuous in the company of posts from friends, Instagram is updating its ads to let them blend in better with user-submitted content. The call-to-action bar, which runs along the bottom of an ad’s image, will, after a brief delay, adopt the dominant color of the image.
Image from Marketing Land
This update is, in a sense, contrary to what past updates to the CTA bar had attempted, which was to make it stand out more. According to an Instagram spokesperson, however, this move is meant to make ads look less immediately disruptive when viewed in line with other posts. As a consequence, ads will have to rely on truly arresting images or videos to capture users’ attentions—and that can hardly be a bad thing, can it?
LinkedIn Autoplay
Quick on the heels of their support for native video content, LinkedIn has begun testing video ads in a limited beta. The ads will play automatically when displayed on the newsfeed and will be labeled as “Promoted” content.
The beta test is currently limited to mobile. Video advertising is expected to be open to all within the first half of 2018.
Also: Facebook Tests Resume Feature
While its experiment with the News and Explore feeds stole the spotlight, Facebook has also been testing a resume/CV feature, which shares certain elements with the one currently used by LinkedIn.
The resume feature expands on the existing options for users to list the professional history and education, providing an easy way for them to go into more detail than previously allowed by the platform. There is no news, however, on when this test feature will enter the mainstream.
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