How to ensure you keep seeing news on Facebook

Thursday, 15 February 2018

Facebook has recently announced changes which may mean you see less of the news you love in your newsfeed. But there is a way to ensure you stay informed when you're on Facebook

OPINION: In the early weeks of 2018, Facebook announced newsfeed changes which caused concern among social media editors across the world.

Among the changes, one titled 'Bringing People Together' caused a particular stir. Essentially, the update will mean you see more content from your friends and family, and fewer posts from the pages you choose to follow.

Facebook says its newsfeed will prioritise posts that 'that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people', so will give greater weight to comments and shares, rather than likes and reactions.

Posts from friends will be weighted most heavily, so if you run a page, expect to see your reach drop.

'Because space in News Feed is limited,' Facebook says, 'showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we'll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.'

So get ready for more baby photos and holiday pics from your globetrotting mates and fewer posts from pages you have liked such as news organisations and celebrities.

In January Facebook announced a newsfeed update that could mean you see less news when you browse the social media site - but there's something you can do.

But there is a way to help ensure you keep seeing updates from your favourite news site (us).

On the mobile app, go to the menu at the bottom right of your screen. Scroll down to 'settings', then select 'News Feed Preferences'. Then 'Prioritise who to see first', and choose the pages you'd like to see first in your newsfeed.

On desktop, go to the Stuff Facebook page, hover over 'following' below our cover image, and select 'see first' below 'in your newsfeed'. Now you'll see the latest news posted by Stuff up the top of your feed, alongside other pages and friends you've chosen to see first.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerburg has acknowledged the changes will see users spend less time on Facebook, although he believes the time you do spend on Facebook 'will be more valuable'.

Given Facebook's inability to tackle the scourge of fake news that plagues the platform, many publishers are unsurprisingly irked Facebook is making changes that will in fact penalise trusted news sources.

At Stuff, we're yet to see adverse effects from these changes, but we're always keeping an eye on our post reach and engagement, and re-evaluating Facebook's place in our newsroom. And as Facebook's algorithm regularly changes, our social team is used to being on its toes, changing how we do things to ensure our posts continue to reach our highly engaged New Zealand audience.

Stuff's social team prides itself on posting the news that matters to Kiwis across New Zealand. Our Facebook audience is diverse, so we post stories on a variety of topics, although we acknowledge not everything will be of interest to everyone.

We don't employ some of the dodgy tricks other news organisations do, we try entice people to read our stories without resorting to 'clickbait' methods and we don't believe we need overhype stories. We don't present international stories as local by omitting the location. If our stories are good enough, we shouldn't have to deceive our audience.

We hope that by playing by these rules, and abiding by Facebook's own recommendations for pages, the mysterious Facebook algorithm should continue to present our posts to Kiwis who have chosen to follow our page.

And remember you can also find our award-winning journalism on Instagram, Snapchat, Neighbourly, and Twitter.