Media Organizations Grapple With the New Facebook

Over the next few months, with the implementation of a revised strategy, Facebook’s two billion users will see less content produced by news organizations and more from their friends, if all goes according to the company’s plan. So what does that mean for the media companies that have come to depend on the social media giant to drive readers to the articles and videos they create? As part of the shift, Facebook pages run by publishers and businesses may see a reduction in the number of people they reach and site visits, he wrote. The numbers will vary based on factors including “the type of content they produce and how people interact with it,” said Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebook’s News Feed. For media companies, a reliance on the company as a driver of traffic has proved an unreliable business model, given that it can change what it prioritizes in its News Feed at any time. Facebook’s battle against clickbait, for instance, sent click-dependent publishers like Upworthy into a tailspin several years ago.