Facebook “Ch Ch Changes”
David Bowie is probably looking at his Facebook news feed this very moment and singing this classic at the top of his lungs. I picture him saying “I thought I unfriended Prince after the ginkgo biloba incident” and “Why am I seeing ads about men’s makeup? That was only a phase.” In actuality, I have to admit that's probably only playing out in my overworked imagination. But I’m sure many of you have noticed that Facebook has changed it’s news feed again and you might be wondering why.
The social media juggernaut is trying to design the perfect user experience. All the while attempting placate shareholders that require the business to find new, more effective ways to monetize their platform. This can be a tricky endeavor for a company that doesn’t charge a dime for usage. So the brain trust is in a constant state of tweakage. A little adjustment here, a line of code added there, and an algorithm overhaul, all designed to put the most accurate products or services in front of their customers...ahem...members. Here's a link to a video about the changes. http://vimeo.com/97740886
That’s right Facebook is learning. The reason your news feed if full of ads you actually like is because they want it that way. Every time you click on an ad or express interest in something that data is stored and your news feed adjusts accordingly. So if you don’t want to see ads about the top ten celebrity nose jobs, then I suggest not clicking on the ad. However, if you have charts and graphs that you constantly update that centers around sitcom stars plastic surgery procedures, then I say click away. Nothing screams “I need a social life” like a pie chart titled Calf Implants on Modern Family. In actuality, this pretty genius. The end goal here is to make Facebook the go to place for news and social interactions and the better they can make the experience, the more often you’ll return.
A recent Mashable poll shows that 44.87% of users “Don’t Love It, But Will Deal With It”. My guess is that number changes over the next few months for the better. Meaning, you, me, and the 687 people in your friends list will slowly come around to "like" the experience. For any company their are two ways to market your business. The first is to respond to the market. Essentially a business owner takes a look around at what's going on in the world and responds to it by creating a product or service, or marketing a product or service in response to new trends. For instance, the click through rate is going up on Google Adwords, so you venture out and throw a couple thousand dollars at it to see if it works. Or you notice that more and more consumers are using alternative transportation to get to work so you open a bike shop. This is how most small businesses start. The second method is to create the market. The most cutting edge mega corporations do it this way. They predict what the consumer wants and then leads them in that direction. This is what Facebook does. In a nutshell they decided that their ads platform had to be cutting edge. So they decided the best way to do it was to launch a custom advertising platform and collected enough behavioral data to make it as close to perfect for business owners buying ad space. It's Google's platform on steroids. A business owner is only advertising to people who have already shown an interest in their product or service and now they're simply showing up as an option. Money well spent I say. Like most new things we're initially resistant to the change but rest assured you'll come around. Facebook ads aren't going away. If I look at it objectively why would I not want stuff in my news feed I'm interested in? Those Facebook execs are so smart.
