Three Facebook Dynamics Broadcasters Should Watch

Facebook Live — In February 2016, Facebook began courting news organizations to upload native video, telling them that the newsfeed algorithm would favor it and the monetization opportunities would offset some losses on their own websites. Facebook even bought TV, billboard and bus advertising underlining CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s promise that it was a video-first company.

In the short-term, it seems to have worked: the number of users broadcasting through Facebook has risen, while competitors like Periscope have faltered.

Almost a year later, however, revenue for most media groups has not materialized, and with repeated errors in reporting, they can’t even be sure their native content is being viewed as much as they thought it was. Discovery of live video also remains an issue, since if a user doesn’t follow the news organization, its Facebook Live event may not show up on their newsfeed. Facebook responded in October 2016 with a promotional vehicle to allow verified news groups to publicize their live events before they happen.

Metrics — Facebook’s latest measurement errors included overestimating the organic reach of posts, the amount of time spent reading Instant Articles and video completions. This is the second such admission from Facebook in a year, as in September 2016 Facebook released a statement about the near-doubling in its reporting of video views. That disclosure prompted the Association of National Advertisers to push for a Media Rating Council audit.

The format of viewing video on Facebook with its autoplay functionality meant that publishers were less surprised that those numbers were wrong. With these latest errors, publishers’ and marketers’ faith in Facebook’s ability to report accurate metrics is eroding. Perhaps more surprising than the errors themselves, Facebook’s billing (how much it charges for ads and mid-rolls) has not dropped in response to the updated numbers.

Facebook has said that it will form a new Measurement Council with advertisers and measurement companies to combat this ongoing problem.

News Feed — The algorithm that determines what content shows up on a user’s news feed (along with its placement and frequency) is a closely-guarded secret at Facebook, and it went through some major changes last year. In August 2016, Facebook fired its human trending-news curators, replacing them with algorithms.

That algorithm discussion became more heated with the rise of so-called “fake news” dominating Facebook feeds. In response to the backlash over fake news becoming indistinguishable from real news to some users, identified fake-news sources were cut off from its display ad network in mid-November 2016. Zuckerberg has insisted that less than 1% of content shared during the election campaign was fake., but there is no way to confirm his claim since all the data for the content being shared is owned — and not shared — by Facebook.

This story originally appeared in TVNewsCheck’s Executive Outlook, a print publication devoted to the future of broadcasting. Read the other stories in the Winter 2017 issue here. Subscribe here.