
Biggest drop in Facebook organic reach we have seen - stdclass
https://medium.com/@filip_struharik/biggest-drop-in-organic-reach-weve-ever-seen-b2239323413
======
PeanutNore
As a former active user on Facebook, this sort of change may succeed in
bringing people like me back to the site. The minimal effort required in
hitting that "share" button means that every page that organically reached my
friends would end up polluting my news feed as well with crap that I wasn't
interested in and got in the way of what I had originally joined FB for. If my
friends aren't seeing these posts, they won't be clicking "share" on them
either.

I've had my account on Facebook since 2004 when it first became available at
my university. Since the very beginning it's first usefulness was as a
Rolodex, basically. I recently stopped using the site (without deactivating my
account, because it still serves that digital Rolodex function) because >75%
of the posts on my newsfeed were either "organic" ads or propaganda. Most of
the offending posts were things that had been "shared" by my friends and not
necessarily even posted by pages I had "liked" or "followed"

A principle I've been using recently to help me understand the world around me
is that I am not special or unique, and when I do something, a lot of other
people who are broadly similar to me are doing the same thing. So, I assume
that there are others like me who have recently been deleting the FB app and
avoiding the website, if not deleting their accounts entirely. Facebook is
almost certainly aware of it, and while publishers are always going to see
stuff like this as a money grab, it may be necessary for the health of the
platform for FB to clamp down on publisher patterns that are driving users
away.

~~~
kevstev
Agreed here. I feel like I am constantly fighting to filter out all this
"content" from external sites. I feel like I can't even see the stuff I joined
FB for- to see pictures/updates to see what my friends are up to. Instagram is
much better for this these days, the signal/noise ratio is getting so low on
FB that I find myself going on just out of habit, not because of the
information I get from there. It has shades of slashdot, which for awhile was
just in my daily list of sites to visit because it always had been, eventually
though it dropped off.

Note that you can eliminate a lot of this crap by changing your news feed from
"top stories" to "most recent." This change will not persist, can not be
changed on the app, and you will have to manually change this every time you
log on- you can't even save the url as a bookmark. Still, its waaay closer to
the FB I used to really like.

~~~
acquacow
You can view "Most Recent" in the app, just have to grab it from your feeds
tab.

~~~
kevstev
Is this new-ish? I remember looking for this awhile back and not being able to
find it.

Thank you though!

------
bhouston
Facebook pulling a bait and switch for newspapers that forces them to pay to
reach an audience they used to reach for free (organic reach)? This has only
happened repeatedly in the history of facebook.

Facebook is like a game where the difficulty rises after you've had a taste of
success. And by difficulty I mean you have to pay to reach your previous
levels of success.

Facebook did this for those first games (e.g. Farmville), then for pages
(remember the idea of advertizing for likes to raise the visibility of your
page in the news feed? [https://www.matthewbarby.com/facebook-likes-dont-
matter/](https://www.matthewbarby.com/facebook-likes-dont-matter/)), now for
newspapers. All in the service of "keeping the news feed clean/relevant for
users", but really it is just effective monetization of the attention of
Facebook's users.

Never become dependent on Facebook's feebies in any way, because you will soon
be paying for them. But I figure everyone already knew this strategy of Zuck's
Facebook -- it is nothing new, it is "The Strategy" over there.

~~~
sametmax
> But I figure everyone knew this about 5 years ago if not earlier.

This is something that keep surprising me. This year we had stories after
stories against facebook. But nothing unexpected. Only about things we said
again and again would happen, for years. We wrote about it. We discussed about
it with friends.

But apparently, being loud and clear about something very obvious is not
enough. When things are too good to be true, people will want to keep
believing it is. All you have to do to keep the frogs in is to raise the
temperature slowly enough so that there is no outrage.

~~~
mrguyorama
I hate that frog analogy. People always use it as shorthand for "small changes
over time go unnoticed" but in the actual experiment, the frogs were basically
lobotomized.

So how are we lobotomized? One sort of answer would be how people are
convinced that their data is not important. They are convinced of this while
Google and Facebook mine it to no end and the NSA stores pretty much
everything you do in Utah. So maybe you don't think it's important, but Some
very big players who have a lot more money and knowledge sure do.

~~~
prsimp
> One sort of answer would be how people are convinced that their data is not
> important.

When I'm wandering through my yard watering plants, I like to imagine a world
where our personal data, or more precisely access to it, is treated more like
mineral rights today.

Companies would be required to pay a small micro-payment royalty anytime your
data was used to make them money, and you would be able to transfer/split the
rights just as you could mineral rights today. This micro-payment world would
supplant the current "your data is the price of admission" world we live in.

~~~
mrguyorama
We do not live in a "your data is the price of admission" world. We live in a
"your data is extra gravy we monetize for free because in small quantities it
is useless to you but in aggregate it has value so we will extract that value
even if you've already paid for the product and legally own it"

------
bad_user
The best part about Twitter is the simple timeline. Twitter doesn’t care about
what the account represents, so all accounts have the same priority.

Yes, Twitter has started to mess with its timeline, but that’s besides the
point.

Facebook’s noise problem is one that they themselves created. Countless of
times I found myself subscribed to some page only because I liked one of their
posts. Which is bullshit, because in my vocabulary Follow != Like.

Then they tried fixing this by prioritizing posts based on a bullshit ranking
system only they understand. That didn’t work either.

Oh well, maybe we’ll go back full circle after all.

~~~
ahussain
Also, why is the second item in my newsfeed _always_ a "Sponsored Link"

~~~
orwin
I'm not using facebook (not since they had this anti-adblock stuff), but if it
is always the second item for everyone, it should be quite easy to hide with a
small greasemonkey script (that you don't even have to code yourself, someone
probably already did).

~~~
wilbert_abreu
Here's a chrome extension that works for me:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsored-posts-
bl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsored-posts-
blocker/cefgndhbngdogmalpnhnidnnlkmbicig?hl=en&authuser=3)

~~~
numbsafari
A chrome extension that uploads all my FB data to its servers? Neat!

~~~
dessant
That extension contains no code for uploading to any server and has no host
permissions in its manifest to do so, its a cosmetic filter.

------
AndrewDucker
The annoying thing here, as a Facebook user, is that if I've liked the "Cute
Puppies" page it's because I want to see their cute puppies.

To then strip them entirely out of my Facebook feed unless they hand Facebook
some cash feels like a step back in my usage of Facebook.

~~~
bpicolo
The annoying bit is that (with the current model), if my friend likes cute
puppies, then I'm forever cursed with them too, at the expense of all the
things I actually want to see.

~~~
AndrewDucker
That is absolutely annoying as well.

It's as if Facebook should show me the things I've asked it to, and show you
the things you've asked it to, and not try and take mine away or give them to
you.

~~~
yellow_postit
Inferring that people that are “friends” may share the same interests doesn’t
seem that unreasonable to me.

~~~
wolco
It is very unreasonable for users who hundreds of friends to expect interests
to he similiar. This could be excused for a smaller site but facebook has
detailed metrics on what I liked where I visited outside of facebook and what
purchases I made.

Using that targeting is much more effective compared to friend's interest.

------
visarga
That's what happens when we abandon protocols (RSS feeds) in favor of walled
gardens.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
It is kind of understandable that RSS feeds would fade in prominence as
content creators, even of more casual blogs, increasingly sought to monetize.
RSS feeds tended to present successively posted content without the ads that
site owners were keen to confront users with. A person subscribing to feeds
would often never need to visit the actual site and see those ads, not would
they get tagged by lucrative tracking cookies. Rather they could read
everything "for free" through an RSS reader. Yes, you could introduce ads into
the RSS feed, but when the RSS channel is increasingly seen as something for
only a tiny niche of anoraks (especially since the demise of Google Reader),
no surprise that it was no longer seen as worth the trouble.

~~~
Crespyl
Or you could simply take the route that most monetized sites with RSS did, and
only include the first few paragraphs of your content in the feed.

Ars Technica still does this, and it strikes a good balance between letting
the user see what content is available in the tool of their choice (and
whether they'd be interested in reading more), and the site/publisher having
control over how the complete articles are presented.

Of course, this requires the site to actually have more than a paragraph worth
of actual content for any given article.

------
ersiees
I think this is a great turning point for Facebook and might even bring
Facebook back on the map SOCIAL media wise. Since almost all people I know
barely use Facebook anymore for communication, because you just don’t see any
posts by your friends no more.

~~~
fnwx17
Actually, they're just forcing businesses that have pages to pay for ads. Like
if you have a well known page that has grown through shares and likes, you'll
be needing to pay money to reach the people that have liked your page.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I don't have a problem with Facebook asking people to pay for the value
provided, especially if it actually increases my utility of it as a user.
(Which, admittedly, I'm not anymore - partially due to this problem.)

------
maaaats
> _In main newsfeed are now just friend and sponsored posts._

Haven't seen many posts by my friends this year, only people commenting or
liking stuff on various pages. Not sure if it is because my friends (including
me) have stopped posting, or if it just drowns in everything else.

~~~
abtom
Can confirm. In my friends list only activity is tagging on memes and posting
life events. All personal sharing has moved to Instagram and "stories" on
Facebook/WhatsApp/Messenger.

~~~
maaaats
I've only once seen someone use the stories feature of Messenger/facebook, and
he is a Facebook employee. All my friends use snapchat to share our days.

------
yosito
This is wishful thinking, but maybe this move will push content creators back
to providing RSS feeds so their audience can follow them without needing to
use Facebook.

~~~
Mikushi
More than wishful thinking, and no offence, but it's simply disconnected with
reality.

RSS is not dead, it was never alive to begin with.

~~~
qznc
It's the other way round for me. I read feeds but no Facebook. Works fine.
Which content producers are missing?

------
sparkzilla
While this is a good move for Facebook's users, who will get a less cluttered
feed, it's a disaster for publishers who use Facebook for content
distribution. For example, over the past year my company has been supplying
news to a network of two million MMA fans on Facebook. With this change it's
very difficult to make enough revenue to continue: less reach = less
clickthrough to our site = less revenue. The silver lining is that if
publishers write off Facebook as a distribution method then perhaps they can
work more on other distribution methods, generating some innovation.

<insert reply about platform dependency here>

~~~
miskin
Yes, dependency is bad, but you target platform where your customers are.

We operate small indoor playground for kids. Sure, I wanted to have website,
but since almost all moms with small kids are on FB 24/7, Facebook Page was
obvious choice. Yes, it makes us platform dependent, but I won't expect our
target audience to play with RSS... Now this step bite us in the backside a
bit. It really sucks to be in the bad part of A/B test :)

------
ankyth27
If you are a small business owner and want to do paid promotion.Please not
spend on likes, and boosting posts also doesn't help much. Create ads with
very specific targeting and take users to your landing page and try to catch
them again with retargeting. This will help you reach better audience and let
you calculate definitive ROIs.

------
dingoonline
Big difference between what the article says:

 _" The idea behind the Explore Feed is to help Facebook users discover more
content across the social network, beyond posts from friends and Pages you
already follow. Instead, this feed surfaces recommended content it thinks you
might find interesting."_

And what the author of the Medium post says: _" All posts by pages are moved
from News Feed to Explore Feed. In main News Feed are now just friend and
sponsored posts."_

If the first is true, then eh. Another useless tab I won't ever use. If the
latter is true, then this is a gamechanger. Facebook has turned into the
literal feed of news for many people for many years at this point.

If it's reduced back down into what it was in 2010, it's going to outrage a
lot of older people who use it for more than a friend feed.

~~~
josteink
> If it's reduced back down into what it was in 2010, it's going to outrage a
> lot of older people who use it for more than a friend feed.

And some people (like me) would be really happy.

For me at least, the facebook feed at this point is just pure SPAM and
garbage.

~~~
visarga
They could have let it to the users to decide if they want news or family
posts. Then there is no conflict between them any more.

------
j-c-hewitt
Frankly the only stuff that is not completely brain-melting on Facebook can be
found in groups, which mostly doesn't do a lot of moving posts around based on
what the system thinks you'll engage with. I only use Facebook to advertise to
people, having long grown disgusted and bored by the main timeline as a user.

------
alkonaut
What are even facebook "pages you follow"? Is it anything that isn't a
personal fb account in the friend list?

Do groups count in this category, or are groups a third category?

I don't think I follow any "pages" such as those created by companies or
artists (apart from personal accounts).

If "pages" were basically fb's equivalent of corporate accounts, why would you
want to follow them? Isn't that like signing up for commercials in your feed?

~~~
tbihl
To give you a counter example, I follow nothing except pages most of the time.
My real account sticks around in case I want to contact friends, and because
some people insist on communicating via FB messages. But all my browsers are
logged into a second account, which has no friends,and follows a non-profit, a
news site from my hometown, and a few think tanks. It only exists because one
or two of those don't put out their feeds anywhere else.

------
dep_b
If I see how many companies don't create a homepage but rely on Facebook
entirely. Or have a very stale homepage while they keep posting news on
Facebook and Instagram. And I don't get it, if you use a free Wordpress setup
with a few simple plug-ins you can already post all of your content
immediately to all social media channels together with an update on your
homepage.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
IG engagement is so much higher for many categories, people just don't
interact with websites like they do with social media

~~~
dep_b
I see bars and restaurants always post stuff happy Friday pictures with food
photos all of the time yet information about what beer or food they actually
serve remains a mystery on their social media channels. If they didn't bother
with a website I'm basically just guessing based on what they took pictures
of.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
In that case they're probably just looking to grow their following by having a
high enough engagement to appear in the featured page of IG, and remind their
existing followers that they exist. Here it's less about promoting the food
and more about promoting the image of the food, so it gets shared more widely.

~~~
dep_b
Very paradoxical as social media should give companies the opportunity to
engage more directly with their customers. It's like meeting a very
interesting Hacker News poster IRL and the only thing that person can talk
about is some kind of sports team you don't give a shit about.

------
IndrekR
To an outside observer (I do not have a FB account), this looks like a good
plan from the FB side. Kind of like GMail inbox categories/tabs. All about
reducing the signal (friends) to noise (something you may have liked 3 years
ago) ratio. You will still see as many ads, but the content between those will
be more relevant.

Too bad FB does not offer ad-free account as an option.

~~~
AndrewDucker
How is it more relevant to remove content that I've deliberately chosen to see
from my feed?

~~~
stdclass
That's exactly what annoys me about it.

I liked those pages, so I choose to see the content.

Their solution to put it into the "Explore"-Tab, mixed with content of Pages I
didn't even like makes it worthless.

------
phrygian
It is their platform, right? I’d assume they are within their rights to
determine how Information flows within it. Obviously they’d want it to be in a
way that positively impacts their bottom line. If the ability to reach people
on their platform through pages is valuable, then i should not be surprised if
they want those who use it to pay for it.

~~~
adventured
That's going to become increasingly the debate, as with Google.

You're starting to see more and more arguments in the media, in Washington DC,
among anti-trust and anti-corporate power groups, that these platforms should
be treated more like utilities. Given the culture at the moment, I'd expect
those arguments to get a lot louder yet.

The platforms are responding predictably:

"Tech Pours Millions Into Lobbying While Pressure Mounts in Washington"

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-20/tech-
pour...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-20/tech-pours-
millions-into-lobbying-as-washington-pressure-mounts)

~~~
yellow_postit
Is there a proposal of what "like a utility" would look like for social media
platforms?

------
ungzd
Looked at this "Explore feed" today. Only "viral videos", "funny animals"
videos, listicles about casual topics. Recently I started to see the same
content in Instagram Explore tab too. This is how their super-targeted AI
trained on terabytes of behavioral data works? The same quality of targeting
as on TV. Why they gather data on users at all?

------
_pmf_
"Captain, it looks like we have reached a MySpace singularity!"

------
jerkstate
Won't someone please think of those poor, helpless brands?

------
dreamdu5t
Rats in a cage.

