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A leaked internal memo revealed Facebook’s strategy for restructuring its main feed. It will focus more on video content like Reels and stories. Sounds familiar, eh?
The Verge got their hands on an internal memo the social media mogul sent to its employees back in April, and it looks like they’re planning on taking on TikTok by changing their algorithm. You can read the whole article and the memo here.
“We’re not really going to put too many limitations on when and where we show recommended content in feed” – said Tom Allison, the head of Facebook to the Verge journalist, after acknowledging that Facebook’s response to TikToks competitive potential was rather slow.
Nevertheless, the company is on its way to fighting its competition once again so let’s take a look at the highlights of the memo, shall we?
Making Content More Discoverable
The term discovery engine has been thrown around a lot in this memo. That’s what Alison hopes to turn Facebook into – a place where people can find the content they’ll like based on recommendations.
Basically – the company wants the feed to recommend more content than what the users are used to, and not necessarily published by people you know or are connected to. That’s a completely different policy from what Facebook had until now and sounds like a copy of TikTok.
In the memo, Alison stated his main priorities:
Make Reels successful
Build world-class recommendations technology
Unlock messaging-based sharing
Making Reels Successful
I can imagine the employees getting this memo and messaging each other in panic. SO much information and such an elaborate goal, right?! Jokes aside, folks. Let’s continue.
Anyways, yes – Facebook wants to make Reels successful, and it looks like their view of success is just sharing it more and making it more discoverable. They’ll do that by integrating the short videos into more sections across the website.
Build world-class recommendations technology
This is extremely focused on the programming of course. Facebook wants to develop a system, or algorithm that should be able to make responsible selections, identify trending content and original creators and show the content to the right person.
It should be very responsive to user interests, which is why Facebook is investing heavily in their Modern Recommendation Systems initiative.
Unlock messaging-based sharing
This just means they’re returning Messenger back in the app because they noticed people like sharing in messages more than they like sharing stuff on the feed.
“We’re partnering with the Messenger team to enable an integrated inbox for more people on Facebook, revamping our sharing flows to enable better sharing to messaging apps across the board, and building community messaging experiences across Facebook and Messenger”. – stands in the memo.
What Will Facebook Look Like?
Tom Alison spoke to The Verge journalist Alex Heath who revealed the following:
“Here’s how the future Facebook app will work in practice: the main tab will become a mix of Stories and Reels at the top, followed by posts its discovery engine recommends from across both Facebook and Instagram. It’ll be a more visual, video-heavy experience with clearer prompts to direct message friends a post. To make messaging even more prominent, Facebook is working on placing a user’s Messenger inbox at the top right of the app, undoing the infamous decision to separate the two apps eight years ago.”
So What Does This Mean For You?
If your business depends a lot on Facebook, try getting used to creating videos. More specifically, short videos. You can find some tips on creating video content here. Take a look at a Twitter discussion about this here.
Update from the future: Mid July of 2022, Facebook published an official announcement on restructuring its main feed and making its home feed a discovery engine. Read more about it here.
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