In a post in its newsroom , Facebook wrote:

People have told us that they dislike spammy [sic] posts on Facebook that goad them into interacting with likes, shares, comments, and other actions. For example, “LIKE this if you’re an Aries!” This tactic, known as “engagement bait,” seeks to take advantage of our News Feed algorithm by boosting engagement in order to get greater reach. So, starting this week, we will begin demoting individual posts from people and Pages that use engagement bait.

The guidelines on what kinds of language will be accepted (or not), are at this stage, still somewhat loose, but what it does mean is that Company Pages will certainly be affected, particularly those that encourage competitions or increased audiences using the methodology.

The general rule of thumb is that if you don’t want to be caught out and penalized for just trying to encourage more reach – then, stick to content which engages users and provide interesting posts, rather than playing the click more game!

** Are you looking for assistance to develop your Facebook presence and want to stay within the guidelines of Facebook for maximum output? Contact our professional and friendly team today for a free initial consultation on 01246 586330 ** 

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Previously, a post had to be shared on to the brand page before it could be boosted. The updated features will enable direct post boosting, from the creator’s profile, and as it appears on their page. The creator simply needs to tick the permission box when they’re composing their post, and tag the Page using the ‘branded content’ tool.

The target audience will see that the post originated from the creator, even though it was boosted by the brand.

In order to ensure affiliations are properly represented, it’s now possible to authorise which creators can tag a brand in their ‘branded content’ posts in the Page Settings.

Branded content insights show key data such as reach, engagement, total spend and CPM to help determine the effectiveness of the creator’s posts.

The branded content tab has been refreshed in Page Insights, and Business Manager to include:

• Detailed tool-tips and explanations to more easily view and understand results
• Total spend from both the creator and the marketer on each post
• Separate summaries of total spend and CPM – in multiple currencies, if needed

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The announcement from Twitter says this change to replies is rolling out to all users across the web, iOS and Android.

As a refresher, Twitter was originally designed as something of a public text messaging service. SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, so Twitter went with a character limit of 140, thinking to leave room for a username ahead of the tweet.

However, the @usernames in Twitter replies did end up counting towards the 140 characters, as did other media attachments, including photos, GIFs, videos, and polls. That left precious few spaces for a user’s actual thoughts.

This also led to informal conventions like “tweetstorms” for sharing longer thoughts, and “Twitter canoes” – large, multi-person conversations which eventually break down because so many people join, there are no characters left to actual post responses.

Twitter has been trying to rectify the problems with its 140 character limit over the past several months by changing its user interface and lifting various technical restrictions. It already stopped GIFs, images, videos, and quote tweets from counting towards the 140 characters. (Links still do count).

With today’s change to replies, Twitter’s interface on web and mobile will now display those you’re replying to above the tweet text, instead of within the tweet, which frees up more characters for your thoughts.

The change to replies marks an end of an era for Twitter. The company helped to popularize this format and bring it into the mainstream. Today, using the “@” symbol to mention someone is supported across a range of services, including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Slack, and even Outlook, among others.

So far the test launch of this today has been really successful and received some positive engagement, but we’d be interested to hear how you feel about this and if it will in fact change your strategy while using the platform?

Do you struggle to compose effective, accurate content for your business Twitter account? Let our experts help. Speak to our friendly team today on 01246 252855 about our Twitter content, or Twitter management packages and see how we can excel your online engagement, and build your brand on Twitter!

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Facebook announces plans to launch DISLIKE button for empathy

It was only a matter of time before Facebook took the ‘LIKE’ concept 90 degrees, we all knew it was coming – yet, last week when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the button would be a way for people to express empathy and was “very close” to having it ready for user testing – the world-wide-web wen’t into overdrive!

However he went on to say he did not want it to be a mechanism with which people could “down vote” others’ posts. Instead, Mark hopes it will be used in times when clicking “like” on “sad” posts felt insensitive.

Facebook’s DISLIKE button has been a topic of discussion online for many years; since having first launched the ‘like’ button in 2009, saying it was an “easy way to tell your friends that you like what they’re sharing on Facebook with one easy click”.

‘Likes’ are a vital part of Facebook’s marketing strategy, as they help inform Facebook’s algorithms and in turn, that information decides what goes into each users’ news feeds: so if a person ‘likes’ a post, they are more likely to see similar posts, whether it is from the same friend or on a similar subject.

What a person ‘likes’ can also help inform marketers on Facebook, if a user, for example, ‘likes’ a lot of fashion pages, they may be more likely to see advertising about health, beauty and fashion – and with that in mind, from a marketing perspective, ‘dislikes’ could be used in a similar way, to steer who marketers target on the site!

We look forward to seeing how Facebook implements this new strategy, but this latest announcement tells us we won’t have to wait too long….

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