Great News For Brands: Facebook Takes Content Promotion to an Unprecedented Level

Last week, we wrote about how Facebook changed its algorithm to surface more articles in its News Feed in an effort to dominate the content distribution game.

The cliff notes version: Facebook is doing everything it can to be far-and-away the biggest driver of social traffic to publisher sites. That, in turn, will cause publishers of all kinds to buy native News Feed Ads to promote their articles and drive even more traffic and shares. The market for this is huge, since effectively targeted News Feed ads can set off a wildfire of organic social media traffic. It’s something that appeals to publishers, brand publishers, and publishers promoting sponsored content on behalf of brands.

Now, Facebook is giving articles even more love. When I logged onto Facebook last night, this single article unit dominated roughly 80% of my feed.

With this move, Facebook is clearly going “all in,” adding article recommendations below regular News Feed posts. I mean, just look at that thing. It’s massive. It’s like Facebook and OutBrain had a love child and pumped it full of PED pixels. It’s going to make publishers of all kinds double down on their Facebook efforts, both organically and through paid content distribution.

Facebook is doing everything it can to be far-and-away the biggest driver of social traffic to publisher sites.”

Of course, Facebook isn’t trying to start a family with OutBrain. They’re trying to steal their business and become the go-to option for paid traffic. It’s also bad news for fellow social networks LinkedIn and Twitter, who hope to attract the same dollars from publishers looking to expand their reach.

The winner in all this? Publishers — particularly brand publishers with a healthy media budget. As the competition for brand dollars heats up amongst social platforms, getting eyeballs on your content is going to get a heck of a lot easier.

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