Facebook is testing a new semantics algorithm that labels posts on your NewsFeed according to category. Preliminary tags include [annoying], [starved for attention] and [preaching]. Just kidding, but Facebook actually has begun experimenting with another tag: [satire]. If people need to be notified of satirical social content, it’s important that we marketers ask, do my social fans “get” my content? Click the video to play and find the answer, or read the text-version below.
Facebook’s bracketed [satire] tag appears only in the related links box that pops up after following a News Feed link to an article. Should an Onion, Empire News, or other parody news source article filter into this box, it is preceded with the [satire] tag.
The social media giant explained the genesis of the experiment, saying, “we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others.”
This change will, perhaps, take the wind out of satire news sources like the Onion, but it will certainly rob LiterallyUnbelievable.org (one of our favorite novelty blogs) of its conceit.
As you might discern from MY parody, I think this change moves towards micromanagement, but in the name of not creating mass misinformation, I won’t lose sleep over it. It raises the question, though: How oblivious does Facebook think its user base is?
And are the people who click on your social content really engaged with your brand?
The lesson is to tune in, not only on the posts that are getting you a high volume of social clicks, but also to pieces bringing in qualified social traffic. You may love quirky, creative content and drive tons of clicks with it, but if the real leads come in from a just-the-facts style, then you have to adjust your strategy. If your audience doesn’t dig the content, it won’t matter how clever you are – they won’t click.
The lesson is to tune in to pieces bringing in qualified social traffic – not just posts getting a high volume of clicks.
Of course, reach is key, but you can have tens of thousands of eyes on your content and maybe only ten of those eyes are in your target market or ever convert for that matter. Are people coming to your site, but leaving right away? Maybe the headline hooked them, but they found the information misleading.
Use your social traffic AND engagement metrics as feedback and regear your content marketing strategy from that perspective.
Do you have any satirical headlines to share? Opinions on Facebook’s new tag? Tweet us! And let us know in the comments section. I’m Max Adagio, Happy content marketing.
