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Good News for Publishers: Facebook Continues to Reward High Quality Content

Posted By Darren Rowse 5th of December 2013 Social Media 0 Comments

Earlier this week Facebook published a FYI update about more updates that they’ve been making (and are about to make) to what will show in users news feeds (thanks to Jen at FBAdslab for the tipoff).

The information is particularly relevant to those of us with Facebook pages who are sharing links in the hope of driving traffic back to our blogs.

High Quality Content Will Appear More

The ultimate goal of the latest updates to News Feed rankings is to show more relevant news to Facebook users, and Facebook states that they’re continuing to focus their attention upon showing ‘high quality content’ to users.

It seems that they’re going to start giving links to articles a higher ranking than they have been previously – particularly to users using Facebook on mobile devices.

This is great to know as a Facebook Page owner. I’d previously spent more time sharing photos with links in the descriptions of the images but have always put a few direct links into my updates as well – of late I’ve noticed these links doing quite well and now we know why.

Also in Facebook’s FYI update this week is an indication that they’re also focusing their attention upon distinguishing between high quality content vs ‘meme photos’.

This focus upon delivering high quality content to your Facebook page rather than going for cheap comments or engagement talked about a few weeks ago – but it’s only going to become more important (and this is yet another signal from Facebook that you need to pay attention).

Facebook to Start Showing ‘Related Articles’

The next part of Facebook’s update this week is pretty interesting for us as publishers. If someone clicks a link that you share on your Facebook page they will then see up to three related articles directly below in the newsfeed. Here’s how they show it as looking:

facebook-related-articles.png

THIS is pretty cool and has potential to drive some decent traffic to publishers creating high quality content.

Keeping the Conversation Live Longer

Lastly, Facebook indicates that they are going to be bringing back older posts that people comment on in their new feed to lengthen the life of those conversations, which is pretty good if you’re using Facebook as a community engagement tool.

Read the full article on these recent changes over at the Facebook Newsroom and let us know what you think in comments below.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Its a really good improvement by facebook.. You will see a lot more engagement people/ page owners will be sharing more picture entails links and this would benefit me. I am a active Facebooker as well. Great Post

  2. It’s great to hear that Facebook will be taking quality content more seriously. It is an area I feel they’ve been hurting in for awhile, from both a professional and personal view. I have found that my personal Facebook account hasn’t been displaying relevant content(pictures, status updates and the like) for what seems like eons. I can’t remember the last time I have had a status replied to, and I believe it to be the content that is being displayed to users en masse.

    I am sure this will help myself and fellow bloggers get their content seen and it’s about time. Facebook’s become known for their rather, shall we say, unwanted updates and this bodes well for the company.

  3. Good to know. I sometimes have issues with Facebook pulling an image from an article to display when I share the link, and I will then default to posting a photo with a link attached instead. But if articles receive more attention, I’ll definitely avoid that in the future.

  4. This is really good news. I however doubt their sincerity in the way they are now handling updates. How can their algo determine what my fans want to see. I think they just want to make money through promotion of posts. If my updates went to all my fans I would see no need to pay for promotion of my posts.

  5. Hi Darren,

    I absolute LOVE the related articles feature. If you create high quality content you can generate serious traffic through Facebook.

    The traffic will be hyper targeted too; not a bad deal for any blogger.

    I dig the emphasis on quality links posted to your FB page too. Fans ignored links on my Page – or maybe FB did? – for a long time but I too noted a spike in interest recently. Now I know why.

    Keep working FB all. These developments could greatly benefit bloggers who churn out quality on a normal basis.

    Thanks for sharing!

  6. Thanks for this post Darren. Makes it all that much easier to understand (YAY). e & c

  7. Hi Darren,

    Great write and thank you for knocking me on the head. This proves that quality content is just getting more (and more) important overtime.

    Appreciate it and thanks for sharing!

  8. Finally finding my true love in this online arena (blogging that is!) I find your site so full of value and the content is beyond the scope of what is actually taught out there. I thank you Darren for being who you are and letting us new bloggers that ‘true value content’ is what blogging has always been about and will always remain. So, whether you are an old timer or a new blogger, keep it real and never take short cuts, always give value…Thank you Darren!

  9. Do you think the related articles are simply that: related articles, or do you think these will be paid promotions that pages have boosted? By the looks of the example, they have used one related article from the actual page and another random related one – wondering if this one was a paid promo?

  10. That is something a good news.. yesterday i saw an article on facebook official blog and i was amazed to see.. that will really biggest improvement in facebbok newsfeed . Even suggestion with post is also added that the amazing features which will change the blogging and intenet marketing prmotion and may be increase to sponsered post..

  11. I think it will be good for publishers and marketers alike and will increase the level of traffic coming from the site, I’m yet to see it display on my feeds personally, another reason to focus on high quality content

  12. Darren, yes, i also noticed it too, my posts with some words in them gets more comments and views than when i used automatic tools…

    This is a wonderful news.

  13. Hello Darren,

    This is wonderful news! I am constantly posting and uploading articles on Facebook. The fact that I can download my quality articles and get tons of free traffic really excites me! Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

  14. I think Facebook offered more benefits to subscribers because of growing popularity of its competitors especially of Google Plus. Anyways option of Related Post is really awesome and will shift huge traffic to a blog if its post fall into this category.

  15. yes, that is music to the ears of publishers who use third-party applications to syndicate content to Facebook. The one thing I learned about Facebook is that no matter how many new blog posts you auto share to your Facebook wall or Facebook fan page, the only benefit of sharing your content on Facebook is gaining wallaby traffic minus SEO backlinks. The posts you auto publish to your Facebook wall with the third-party application are possibly not indexed by search engines either. That said, the only thing publishers benefit from by sharing content on Facebook is traffic, Facebook shares and commenting on posts. I often wonder why Facebook does not offer itself as backlinks to blogs and websites who auto publish their content on the world’s number one social network. Would you happen to know why?

  16. Darren,

    Do you think car blogger have the ability to become internet blogging millionaires? What’s your view on “car blogs?”

    • To determine if a blog can become successful to great measures(such as a million+,) you need to look at facts. Use Google Adword tools to determine search volume, traffic estimations and other things that can help determine traffic, demographic, etc.

      In one way or another any blog can become “the next big thing,” but it’s never easy. You could go through many,many blogs along the way.

  17. Facebook offering many credits for its users but those stuff need to be used in right manner to get the credits related articles which really cool stuff as like we are using related post in our blog makes to engage readers to know about relevant stuff available

  18. Nice post Admin. i Think they are updating the features rapidly because of their popularity .

  19. I liked the part that says about “older posts” most. The most fun thing I do on Facebook is to comment on a year old post on a friends wall and that post goes live on all of my Facebook friend’s homepage :D

  20. Looks like, Facebook is going to have a bit professional look, more neat and clean, more useful I think.

  21. Facebook was supposed to be a #social network, but it seems that, it is getting a business place day by day. That’s another angle of view. Obviously the improvements will bring some people their targeted audiences, but again, that’s business.

  22. As far as giving/showing the related and somewhat relevant articles to the user, it’s good to see that there’ll be more chances of getting found by many and getting the quality backlink plus huge engagement at the same time from the blogger/IM point of view. However, when looked from the other side of the coin, “I”, as a “FB User” would love to see and use Facebook as more Facebook and less Google.

  23. Great to hear this news about Facebook update.really going to help me drive much traffic to my blog/sites. I liked very much showing of 3 older posts…it can easily grab visitors attention. Thanks Darren ..great post.

  24. Samuel says: 12/06/2013 at 7:54 pm

    Hi Darren – I think you need to furbish a little more information in your article because at the moment it is not accurate. You’ve based this story entirely on what you’ve read in the news release by Facebook, but if you dig a little deeper and see what everyone else has been saying – you’ll notice that this is something that’s been going on for many months.

    The fact of the matter is that organic reach for 95% of all Facebook pages has dropped. The only people who have seen higher engagement and a greater organic reach are the likes of BuzzFeed, LA Times, New York Times etc – that are in the news business. Facebook is literally turning the “NewsFeed” into a “News Feed” because of this because they want people to be up to date with the latest in the world in addition to what is the latest with their friends.

    Tons of forums have been talking about this over the last few months – organic reach has dropped for all pages and it does NOT matter if you have quality content or not in terms of this new change.

  25. I can’t tell if I’m happy or sad that Facebook is taking more control over the newsfeed. I sort of just want to see everything that the people and brands that I follow post. Then based on the quality of their posts, choose to hide them from my feed or not.

  26. It’s always been about high quality content as far as keeping longevity and value for a blog site. But Facebook taking control over the newsfeed, not sure how I feel about that. On one hand quality content is all I really want to read, however, that’s not what FB is about. It’s about people’s feelings, moods, daily activities etc…I believe it should be up to the people what they want to read. Peace and Love…

  27. I think the recent Facebook update FYI, is an improvement.
    It should bring relevant content, traffic, and business, to the Facebook user, and enterpreneur.
    It seems to promote, or direct, the availability of knowledge, or real-time good, to all people.
    Thank you, for the write-up.

  28. Wow this sounds so good and by doing this people can really continue to produce high quality content. As well as bringing great stuff to friends and improve Facebook a lot more.

  29. I’ll only argue that the selection process by which FB will make their choices is very suggestive. What will happen most likely is, they’ll look at their users with the highest amount of post and engagements, and filter down from there.
    I just don’t see how they would otherwise sift through all the users posts to find the best quality content around. What if people pushing their content through promoting somehow get dipped in the sauce? Seems like it could become unfair if this isn’t addressed.

  30. High quality content is king. You have to focus on producing value for readers, if you don’t then you will fail in internet marketing.

  31. Darren,

    I haven’t been able to understand how you manage to get so much traffic from Facebook when Facebook shows your story to so few people who like your page. I’ve managed blogs before and have found that roughly5-50% of people who like your page see your article.

    Are these numbers off?

    If not, it’s good that Facebook is finally starting to show more articles that are posted on pages.

    Evan

    • From what I understand Facebook is known to show only a certain percentage of people your content. I hear it’s an effort to get people to pay for promotion. I honestly don’t really use Facebook as a marketing platform. It just doesn’t seem to carry the same weight as other social media platforms.

  32. That’s AWESOME to know!

    I’ve just begun to use Facebook as a traffic strategy, and I’m already seeing excellent results – even though I’ve only been at it a week. My main strategy, though, remains to be Twitter.

    Great post!

    Regards,
    JR John

  33. It is a good news for all the FB users. It seems FB is going on the footsteps of google and giving value to the quality content. It will surely make the user experience good and more interactive

  34. Now that you mentioned Facebook rewarding users for syndicating high-quality content to the world’s most popular social network, it would also be a good idea for article marketers to use free third-party applications to syndicate their articles to their Facebook profiles and Facebook fan pages in efforts of increasing exposure to their published works. When anyone learns to master Internet marketing, it is the best alternative education to getting a quality college education.

  35. Great news. I think it is in Facebook’s best interest to keep their commercial group/page happy. If we’re not effective with their channel, less resources will be spent there.

  36. I’ve started to share some more quality content from sponsors onto Facebook, alongside a relevant stock photo added with hashtags and a unique description about the sponsored post. I’ve noticed since that LIKES on Facebook have increased and people are sharing content without me asking them to, which is definitely a good thing.

  37. This new Facebook improvement is good in a way that people will only follow whatever they are interested in.
    But publishers have to be careful what they post on Facebook since it might get unfollowed and then their post will not bring traffic to their website

  38. That’s a good move from Facebook with related articles, so Facebook is also picking up pace with Google plus.

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