By Katie Scollay

An e-Marketer article has recently reported that Facebook may be implementing a new change that will affect businesses and their organic Facebook content. In six countries, Facebook has already rolled out a new discovery focused “Explore Feed” in which organic posts originating from Pages were taken out of the News Feed and placed into this Explore Feed.

The Explore Feed was created “to surface content to users based on their past interests and social connections from sources they have yet to follow.” However, businesses are now worried that they will eventually have to pay to have their organic content shown in the normal News Feed. In one of the countries involved in this test, a Facebook Page with a large following has already seen engagement levels fall to between two-thirds and three-quarters of normal rates.

Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s Vice President of Product Management wrote a blog in response to the growing concern stating, “The goal of this test is to understand if people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content.” The article states that at this point there is no plan to charge Page users to have their content posted in the News Feed as well as expanding testing beyond the existing six countries. Although the goal of this change is to improve the user experience it has a lot of business Pages concerned for the future.

It’s too early to know if paid placements will become the only real way for Pages to stay visible to their audiences, but it’s good to begin to formulate strategies for keeping as much organic presence as possible should things change. Buzz around user-generated content being important to the Facebook algorithm says real people engaging with the brand and each other may help brand Pages keep organic info in news feeds. Cue the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, “All in good time my pretties, all in good time.”

For More Info on The Explore Feed Check Out These Articles:

Tech Crunch 10/18/17:  Facebook Officially Rolls Out Its Discovery-Focused “Explore Feed”

Recode 10/23/17: Publishers Might Have to Start Paying Facebook If They Want Anyone to See Their Stories

Inc.com 11/2/17: https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/this-is-why-facebooks-newsfeed-changes-are-dooming-small-businesses.html?cid=sf01002&sr_share=facebook