In an effort to increase content quality and overall user experience, Facebook is cracking down on publishers and the type of content they’re able to share and advertise on the platform. While there were preexisting regulations on low-quality content and ads, Facebook plans to more strongly enforce these policies in the coming months of 2017. What does this mean for publishers? If your content is high quality, original, and straightforward, you can expect little to no change, and even a slight boost in your post traffic. If your ads and subsequent content are of low quality, misleading, or poorly written, you may be in for a rude awakening of policy violation notifications, blocked posts, and significantly decreased content traffic. If you fall into the second category, there’s still time to start realigning your content with Facebook’s new publishing standards. Here are some essential tips on beginning the transformation from a decent publisher to an extraordinary one.
Valuable Content
The first step in cleaning up your content is to ensure that it’s original and valuable. Viewing the same content repeatedly is of little value to online audiences. So, images that have been screenshotted, recropped, or reposted from other web sources will become a huge red flag during Facebook’s content refurbish. Also, articles or landing pages with little to no meaningful content will be frowned up, such as galleries with one image per page. Shoot for creating authentic content that is yours originally, or properly sourced and credited, and is thoroughly saturated with valuable copy and images.Well-written copy
Another essential element of great content is the actual quality of writing and grammar of your ads and articles. Your audience should be able to clearly understand and gain knowledge from your content. Sites like Grammarly can help you easily improve the written quality of your content. If you are unable to create the content yourself, you can outsource freelance writers for rates as inexpensive as $5 an article depending on your industry (you may also want to check godotmedia.com and upwork.com for this sort of assignments). Performing a simple check for plagiarism on this outsourced content, with free resources like Siteline.com, will eliminate any unknown duplicate issues that may have plagued your previous content.Relevant, clean experience
One of Facebook’s main goals with publishing standards, and other platforms all over the Internet, is to enhance the relevance and aesthetic of the entire content-viewing experience for users, from beginning to end. This means not only thumbnails and headlines but also the pages these ads link to. Creating relevant content that does not contain malicious, shocking or offensive material should be your goal as a publisher, including posted ads and linked site material. Additionally, strive to create an uninterrupted, coherent viewing experience for your audience when reading content. This means avoiding ad placement that overlaps intended content, or pop-up or side bar ads that follow users when scrolling down pages. Clean, aesthetically pleasing design is not only Facebook-compliant— it is one key to ensure users come back again and again.Straightforward, engaging strategy
Many publishers believe that misleading or sensationalized content will increase their chances of achieving the seemingly elusive, quintessential virality. But many of the most successful companies have achieved viral effects without misleading or shocking their audience into clicks. Wittyfeed, the world’s second largest viral content company, says their secret to viral content lies in three key areas: clickable, shareable, relatable content. They achieve this type of content through tapping into curiosity and emotion, on a visually stimulating medium in a language that feels relatable to one of the biggest demographics that consume their type of content: millennials. In addition to frequently reassessing and revamping their strategy every 15 days to stay current and cutting edge, Wittyfeed’s method of content publishing has proven successful for this leading viral content company, and could be widely effective for any publisher looking to improve the quality of their content.Ultimately, investing the time, effort and money into your content is the key to ensuring your website is in alignment with Facebook’s new publisher standards. By following the above guidelines, you can sustain your ability to continue creating monetizable content and yielding impressive traffic on your high quality content.
