Last week, Mark Zuckerberg held his first-ever community Q&A. Users, brands and employees got to ask questions about Facebook, plus fun stuff like what he thought about “The Social Network” and why he wears the same t-shirt every day. Watch the video below to see what he covered, plus questions we wish he addressed.
What happened to organic reach?
Mark said Facebook is empathetic to startups and businesses. That said – there are about 1,500 stories a day that COULD appear on the average user’s News Feed, but in reality, only about 100 appear. This means less than 10 percent of what’s being posted will actually show up on your screen.
How do you guarantee visibility?
Mark said good content will rise to the top – so when you’re posting to Facebook, think about what will provide value to your readers – what do they actually care about?
Now here are some of the questions we wish he answered:
What’s going on with Graph Search?
We’ve been hearing for years that Graph Search is going to elevate Facebook and make it a competitor with Google. But, when is it going to take off? And how will it affect brands?
Why is your algorithm such a secret?
We have a pretty good idea of how algorithms work with Google search. Why not help us all out and tell us what content you want to see on Facebook? In the chat, Mark specifically said they get a lot of questions about the ranking of the news feed, we “want to make it so you always see the most important stuff.” If it’s in-depth, visual or just generally engaging, we’re happy to comply, but write “the ideal content” is cryptic.
Why can’t we have GIFs?
Now that they’re available on Twitter and Google+, why are you making it so tough to put them on News Feeds? You can share a link, and some sites have even found complicated workarounds. But your emphasis on visual content seems to have a blind spot when it comes to GIFs.
By the way – Mark’s answer to why he wears the same grey t-shirt? He pulled an Obama style response, saying he’s focused on too many other important decisions to worry about his wardrobe.
We’ll be keeping an eye on updates to Facebook, particularly when it comes to changes that affect brands. What are questions you wish Facebook would answer? Let us know in the comments.
