Amid the clamor of brands complaining about a dramatic drop in Facebook page views, Facebook has introduced a new stream called Pages Feed. You can now view, exclusively, many of the posts published by the brand pages you follow.
As a method to filter all of the content hitting your News Feed, Facebook has relied on EdgeRank, which aimed to keep out the content your network wasn’t engaging in, while surfacing what was most popular. Unfortunately, brands claim that as much as 50 percent of their content never reaches its fans, and some users are miffed at not being able to see this information.
The Pages Feed is likely an attempt to appease those frustrated with the decreased engagement. Facebook has been trying to strike a balance and keep its marketers and users happy, and it’s increasingly seeming like a losing battle. Dallas Mavericks owner and VC Mark Cuban has been a vociferous opponent to the filtered content, and disclosed that he’s following through with the threat of having his portfolio of 70 startups abandon Facebook altogether. George Takei has an entire chapter in his to-be-released book dedicated to Facebook and the problems with Edgerank. And in the midst of all this, Facebook is experimenting with the new Pages Feed feature.
The Pages Feed tab can be found on the left side of your homepage under Pages and sits above a new tab called Like Pages.
The Like Pages featured is also new to the site. Based on appearances, users on this page can discover new Facebook Pages to follow, and it was probably built with the intention of getting brands a few extra Likes here and there. Recommended Pages can be filtered based on categories including Music, Movies, Local Business, and even Recent Check-ins. Whether or not these efforts will appease brands is difficult to say, although given the extent of the backlash, we’d assume Facebook will have to do more.
