The world got wind of the biggest Facebook algorithm change in years. Google officially reclaimed its spot as the top source of referral traffic since Facebook overtook it in August 2015, which means the world’s biggest social network has been pushing less and less traffic to content.

According to a Parse.ly data analysis of over 2,500 sites, Facebook referral traffic now sits at 35.1 percent, while Google referrals are hovering just above 40 percent. Combined, the two tech giants own 85 percent of the mobile ad market and make up nearly 80 percent of all referral traffic to publisher and branded content sites.

1. Link posts are on the decline

Facebook recently cracked down on clickbait posts that display a fake “play” button to trick people into clicking on a URL, which may explain part of the dip. But in my view, that isn’t the whole story. Facebook has long been transparent about its desire to prioritize native content that keeps you there over links that take you to an external site. It’s time to prepare for another drop in organic traffic to blog posts and other “owned” website content.

2. Paid distribution is more important than ever

For content marketers, Facebook’s biggest value is as a paid distribution network. It has the greatest combination of targeting, reach, and cost efficiency of any distribution platform. And that’s not just for B2C companies. Professional and B2B content performs much better than most marketers realize, even for niche topics such as “Logistics.”

Source: Contently

WHAT THIS MEAN TO MARKETERS?

Our clients know that we keep reminding them about having multiple formats once we produced the video. The reason is simple, Facebook wants native content and the audience are favourable that the video played in certain aspect ratio. Thus, the same video you may want to have at least 3 different format/ratio; for website/youtube, facebook and a teaser for (promotions). It's a strategy! Remember that your audience is conditioned differently on a different platform, and to have the maximum outreach, format your video at their convenience. Let me know if you need help on how to format your videos into those different platforms.