Facebook Targets Clickbaiting

On August 25th, Facebook has officially announced their next steps in improving content on your news feed. This new initiative strikes directly at clickbait-type articles that attempt to lure in readers by giving as little information (or very little value) as possible.

According to Facebook this will only affect “a small set of publishers”. Some of the most popular publishers that use these clickbaiting techniques are: Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and Upworthy. If you are still confused on what a clickbait article looks like, here are a few examples (out of literally millions):

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What happens when you put farmers on the internet? Justice.

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While some people find these articles enjoyable, Facebook found that over 80% of users preferred headlines that helped them decide to read a relevant article...rather than attempt to lure them in.

The method used to measure if an article is clickbait is by timing how long a user visits the site they click on. If the time is less than a few seconds, it is noted as not valuable content. Also, if there seems to be a large number of clicks but very few likes, comments, or shares it is believed that article was no value to viewers.

What does this mean to Content Creators?

It means Content Creators will have to focus on more valuable content that readers are truly interested in, rather than just catchy headlines.

Beyond your visibility on Facebook, creating valuable content will draw in a more dedicated group of readers who visit your site regularly. These dedicated fans are worth much more than the one time reader.

To learn more visit Facebook’s newsroom here.