Facebook's Not for Friends Anymore

FACEBOOK DOESN'T CARE WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE

The core principle that Facebook was built on — a place to connect with your friends and family — is gone.

That may sound dramatic, but hear me out. Facebook has just announced that the first screen its users see when they open the app will be called Home, and it will feature content based on what you’ve previously watched, and what the algorithm believes you’ll be most likely to engage with. Here’s what Zuckerberg himself had to say about it:

“The app will still open to a personalized feed on the Home tab, where our discovery engine will recommend the content we think you’ll care most about.”

Mark’s trying to shift our focus to the second tab, where you’ll see content from your friends, groups, and pages, but the fact is that Facebook’s relegating all of your connections’ content to a secondary screen in order to free up your Home Screen for content that the algorithm thinks you’ll want to engage with. The update is another attempt to keep pace with TikTok, where content is all that matters, and connections are an afterthought.

It may be the only shot that Facebook has at remaining relevant, but it’s a fundamental shift away from the original connection-driven mission of the company, and it’s going to have major implications on the way we use the platform.

There's been much speculation about the damaging effects of information bubbles that Facebook has created for users. Even when the majority of content that appears in your feed is determined (at least in part) by who you’re connected to, Facebook will tend to serve up only content that agrees with your current viewpoints and will tend to feed you news that confirms your biases, whatever they happen to be. Removing the anchor to human connections sets the algorithm free to multiply that effect. Without any need to show you updates and events from the people in your life, Facebook can dedicate 100% of the new Home tab to surfacing content that will spark emotions like anger and indignation. For general public discourse, the Home tab is potentially disastrous.

The story for brands is quite different. A fully content-driven tab means we now have a chance to be seen again. When every post that people see is determined by the quality of the content and how people are reacting to it, then brands that are investing in high quality pieces may actually see a boost in their reach. It will likely be a hits-driven environment, much like TikTok, where one post may get in front of a million+ people, and the very next may appear to just dozens.

There are downsides, like the way that this will no doubt incentivize content creators to publish ever-more shocking and clickbait-style content, but for the brands who have legitimately dedicated communities of people who care about what they’re up to, and who create content that people want to engage with, some significant opportunities are about to open up.

When we consider this update along with the content shifts that we discussed last week, it becomes even more clear that we, as brands, are being thrust into a video-first content ecosystem. If you want to have a shot at reaching your audience on any of the Meta-owned platforms, now is the time to be sharpening up those video editing skills, because we’re going to need them.

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting