Facebook's latest News Feed algorithm tweak will likely be good news for users, but could prove to be another headache for brands.
Facebook announced Tuesday that it will start showing more text status updates from users in the News Feed, but it will downplay the number of text status updates from Pages.
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"This will help us show people more content they want to see," Chris Turitzin, a Facebook product manager, wrote in a blog post. "Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types."
Turitzin said the change was based on an observation that Facebook users respond better to text posts from other users than they do from Pages. However, the move also appears to be part of a broader effort to emphasize visual media in the News Feed.
Facebook offered the following example of how brands might share out content in the future in order to avoid being hurt by the change:
Post by Forbes.
The social network previously tweaked its News Feed algorithm in December to emphasize quality articles over memes. Some brands later noticed that their content had less reach on the service in the aftermath of this algorithm change.