fbpx

Facebook News – Newsfeeds Feed No News In Australia

Facebook News? Not In Australia!

Facebook News from down under…

What a way to wake up this morning! 

Overnight Facebook implemented restrictions on publishers & Australian users sharing or viewing Australian & international news content.

So people opened their business pages this morning to find that the page was still there – but the content was gone. All gone – not just the news posts, but photos, the cover photo and everything.

 
It’s still all there of course, but we can’t see it here in Australia.
 

After contacting Facebook chat support, it seems the distinction is pages connected to a site with an Australian news domain. So we qualify. In the same bucket as the big boys. Flattering…but a bit unfair!

Other fall-out

Some non-news pages have been wrapped up in this restriction like the BOM, DFES and some community health and NFP pages. As I write this some of them have been reinstated.

So what the heck is this Facebook News thing all about?

 

I’ll explain.

Facebook and the Australian government have been negotiating for years about paying for content. Here’s the “sides” of the argument:

In the red corner

The government’s stance is that news publishers should be paid for posting their content on Facebook.

The government claims that news is of value and should be paid for, ok – that’s fine, but advertising on news websites and paywalls pay for news content…

And there’s no coincidence this has happened the same week that Google had to get out its checkbook (or really just the coins in it’s centre console) to pay up for news content in deals it struck with Seven West Network and Channel Nine ($30m per year btw)

This claim supposes the money paid by Facebook – important distinction, not to the government, to the publishers (this has nothing to do with who pays how much tax where and when) will result in preserving the integrity of journalism.

Lofty.

IMO: Our government doesn’t care about the integrity of journalism. It’s quite clear by the way they’ve dealt with the ABC.

In the blue corner

Facebook’s stance is that the publishers are the ones posting content (they don’t have to – it’s voluntary) as a distribution method and therefor as Facebook doesn’t need the content and hasn’t taken the content (it is volunteered) then there’s nothing TO pay for.

News media get their clicks from distribution channels; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, etc. Facebook is just one of them. The balance of benefit it weighted towards the publisher and not Facebook.

The best analogy I hear is that it’s like the paper boy paying The West every time he delivers a newspaper. That’s not how payment works….the receiver pays – not the deliverer.

In Facebook’s statement (linked below) they make it clear that it’s unlike Google, and users must actively post their content on their platform.

IMO: Yep. It’s different to Google. But most publishers (good ones at least) make special effort to be displayed on Google, so while Facebook is completely different there as it’s a choice to post, what to post, when, etc I don’t think Google should pay for content either.

Some Facebook News Thoughts

 

The timing of this isn’t a coincidence!

Earlier in the week there was a post in my Facebook group from a member which I’ll share with their permission:

 
These screenshots were shared on the 12th of February with a suspicion it had something to do with the proposed law changes. I replied that I thought they would be testing the fall out on a small group of users and that the member must have been in that group.
 

I think Facebook knew this functionality wasn’t flawless and that they had to deploy it as time’s running out to negotiate/amend the laws (and not only time, but the government’s willingness to negotiate or bother to learn how the internet and social media operate) and they rolled it out anyway.

This did cause (and is still causing some) issues with non-news pages being swept up in the restrictions.

The Bureau Of Meteorology, DFES and several community health and NFP pages were restricted. As well as Buggybuddies, So Perth, Urbanlist, Perth Is Ok, Zac Kirkup and many more.

The BOM and DFES are back up now. Buggybuddies has put through an appeal, but probably counts under the government’s very (deliberately) broad definition of “publisher” but we’ll update if and when we hear anything.

Facebook News Info, Resources, and Stuff I Collected

Starting with the official things:

The Facebook article explaining the changes by William Easton, Managing Director, Facebook Australia & New Zealand

Facebook’s Timeline of supporting news in Australia – or as I call it, “we tried”

The Facebook Help article

The link to appeal the restrictions if your page shouldn’t have been affected

What’s being said out there?

My Facebook group thread with heaps of info, stories and links you’ll have to request membership to be able to see this by the way.

 

Click the images for the link to the original posts.

WA Premier Mark McGowan almost gets it.

Interestingly his page survived while his Liberal counterpart’s didn’t.
 

Adam Bandt misses the point…but does HAVE a point instead of rolling out the TAXES argument which has nothing to do with anything…

Facebook News
Betoota nails it from a publisher POV (as usual).

And, surprisingly they’re still able to post links…

The world is looking on with interest, and…bemusement?

So there’s the shitshow that was my morning, dealing with the shock and confusion of clients, peers and the public and now I’ve finally got all this post down I’m going to get back to work…while I still have work.

The Wash

Pages this has affected can’t post at all.

Even non-news.

Even Facebook Stories.

Support your favourite pages by signing up to their email databases as that’s the only way they might be able to share their content with you for a while (or ever?)

Before I go here’s my recommendations is this has affected your page/s –

      • Appeal here.

      • Remove your website link if it would be considered “news” or a “publisher” based in Australia.

      • Change your page category from publisher to blog or community.

      • Wait and keep an eye on your support inbox.

Get in touch with us at hey@themarketer.news if you have a story on this to feature.

Join my group where I’m curating resources in real time, and if you’re in Perth and want to talk face-to-face, come along to our Grill The Marketer event Thursday the 25th. I’m sure we’ll touch on it briefly, lol!

 

Peace!

Facebook Apocalypse | Actionable Tips To Negotiate The Fallout

Facebook set it’s house on fire by changing how the newsfeed works – so what do we all do now?

There’s some things in Social Media Marketing that will always be true. I’m going to start with those, as many publishers and brands will really need to go back to the basics to make sure they are still reaching their audience.

These are simple, but often overlooked and there’s only 3 main ones…

1. Strategy

What do you WANT from your Facebook activity? What does success look like for your accounts?

Is it sales, brand awareness, leads, customer service?

Think about what you actually want to achieve by being on Facebook in the first place. What’s the best way to achieve your goals, bearing in mind Facebook is saying they will be preferencing “meaningful” content that evokes deeper thought and attracts long comments.

I’ll outline a few formats I think will still be viable under this newsfeed change in the next section.

2. Audience

Your Facebook page isn’t for you.

Let that sink in.

It can be ABOUT you, but it’s supposed to be for your AUDIENCE. Facebook’s trying to put the Social back into Social Media.

newsfeed

What does going back to basics here look like? Stop creating content you like, and put your efforts into content that means something to your audience. Keep it relevant, put some thought into who your audience is, what they’re day looks like, when they want to hear from you and you should see success with Facebook’s new focus – creating a meaningful experience, keeping you safe from the newsfeed update.

Dive into your insights and check out who your audience are (you might be surprised) and always keep them central to your content creation (or curation)

You may need to post less often to achieve success here, but putting the extra thought into your content, and cutting down on your frequency could definitely help your newsfeed visibility.

3. Community Management

This one has been around as long as Facebook itself, but it’s lost a bit of shine, at least to me if I’m honest. I’d say this was mainly due to the amount of effort it takes to run a community, the fact that you can’t really measure community ROI, and the declining organic newsfeed reach which pushed all us former Community Mangers into the realm of Paid.

Having said that, it’s always been important to answer the questions, queries and issues of your fans and customers on your Facebook page. It’s Social after all!

In the announcements by Facebook in the previous week they’ve stated that simply replying to all your comments isn’t enough. They say they don’t care about page-to-person interaction (I have a hunch they still keep tabs on it, like they do with answered messages in Messenger, but I have no proof) they only care about person-to-person interaction.

So if you already have a community of active commenters, who participate in thoughtful conversions about the topics around your brand – this is going to be a huge advantage! If you don’t it looks like trying to build one is the key here.

I’m not going to lie, starting from scratch is going to take a lot of effort on your part, especially if you’re a small business. For larger businesses this will mean they might decide to dedicate a Social Media team member to “conversation starter” rather than simply moderating comments or providing customer service.

It also makes me wonder about the Telcos. If you’ve been on a Telco page lately (or ISP for that matter) you’ll find long, detailed accounts of people’s greivances. Is this what Facebook will end up preferencing in the newsfeed? Might be good news for NFPs and cause related communities?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Another thought pops into my head about trolls. Will brands now ‘Fake Troll’ themselves to get longer comments? Yuk. Let’s hope not.

Ok, so that’s my 3 back to basics tips. Bring Sexy Social Back with a re-think about your strategy and why you are on Facebook in the first place, ALWAYS post audience-first, and have a plan to engage your community.


How are you going to stay ‘newsfeed visible’ though?

It’s all very well and good for the answer to be “create better content” but HOW?

Here’s some tips I think will still be effective on Facebook, depending on your niche and audience.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live generates heaps of interaction. I wouldn’t say long comments per se, but it’s an awesome way to get your content seen in the newsfeed. If you haven’t thought about how you could go live with a tutorial, or something that helps your audience then the time is now.

AMAs

Ask Me Anythings would be a good way to get people thinking, writing longer comments and having meaningful interactions in their newsfeed. As a brand or business owner there’s surely things you know that your audience would be interested in. You could always invite guests in your niche to answer questions for your audience to keep it interesting.

You could even schedule these as Facebook Lives! Double whammy.

Facebook Groups

This newsfeed update will affect groups to a degree, but they tend to inspire more thoughtful dialogue as people feel safer to share in a group of likeminded people.

Perhaps your brand could benefit from it’s own group?

Facebook Events

As well as groups, events get a lot more interaction than pages. If your brand hosts events you can use them to help keep the interaction from the event off the main page and in one spot where it’s easily manageable, but more importantly you can promote them too (as long as they have more than 15 “attending” responses)

The final one is pretty obvious…

Facebook Ads

There’s a way you can get your important content into the newsfeed. You can pay for it to appear there.

Facebook did announce they were running out of ad inventory, but everything they’ve mentioned so far in this newsfeed update hasn’t included ads.

But don’t be fooled into thinking you can just boost a post that wasn’t written with your audience in mind and achieve success.

I think this newsfeed update has made sure we all know Facebook is getting serious about the social aspect of Social Media, and with potentially more brands moving into the paid realm, ads may get more expensive.

Over to you readers, what do you think? Have you seen any changes on your newsfeed yet? I’d love to know!