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FACEBOOK NEWS FEED CHANGES IN SPAIN
WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? Table of CONTENTS
UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK NEWS FEED CHANGES 3
EFFECTS ON THE NEWS FEED CHANGES IN SPAIN 4
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEWSROOMS 11
METRICS USED IN THIS REPORT 12
ABOUT THIS STUDY 13
CONTACT 13 Information for News Publishers 3
Understanding Facebook News Feed Changes
FACEBOOK IS Improving user experience and spread REDEFINING ITS of reliable news. ENGAGEMENT LOGIC
As of May 2018, most publishers on Facebook have lost engagement.
Publishers most affected: FACEBOOK Large tabloid and viral pages. ENGAGEMENT IS SHRINKING FOR ALMOST EVERYBODY Content type most affected: Video.
Smaller local pages are doing relatively better.
FACEBOOK’S PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Facebook made a big announcement OF ALGORITHM in January. CHANGES DO NOT MATCH UP Changes to algorithm are ongoing WITH CHANGES IN and require monitoring. PRACTICE 4 Facebook News Feed changes in Spain
EFFECTS ON THE NEWS FEED CHANGES IN SPAIN
Facebook engagement on Spanish news pages dropped 12% on average over 6 months.
The largest viral and tabloid publishers are affected across Europe and also in Spain (e.g. PlayGround).
The Catalan Independence Referendum and the Regional Elections caused a spike in late 2017. Catalan language publishers are returning back to previous engagement levels.
Who grew the most: Local newspapers.
Photo engagement remained stable.
Video engagement dropped by over 30%. Video is affected across Europe.
Link engagement remained stable.
Facebook announced the changes in January 2018, but the effect is spread across end of 2017 and first half of 2018. Changes vary across different countries and roll- out schedule is not known outside Facebook. Information for News Publishers 5
Spanish news publishers’ Facebook engagement dropped by 12% on average in 6 months, but not everybody went down
SELECTED MAJOR NEWS PUBLISHERS IN SPAIN (SPANISH LANGUAGE) AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT PER DAY 15 NOVEMBER 2017 - 15 MAY 2018
120 000 eldiario.es
Telecinco 100 000 Okdiario 80 000 La Vanguardia
60 000 El Periódico
40 000 El País El Mundo 20 000 Antena 3 Noticias
0 ABC.es
Dec-17 Jan-18 Feb-18 Mar-18 Apr-18 May-18 20minutos.es 6 Facebook News Feed changes in Spain
Biggest and viral type of publishers suffer the most everywhere, also in Spain
SELECTED MAJOR NEWS PUBLISHERS IN SPAIN (SPANISH LANGUAGE) ENGAGEMENT PERCENTAGE CHANGE 15 NOVEMBER 2017 - 15 MAY 2018
9% 10 7% 4% 0 -2% -3.5% -3% -10 -11% -14% -15% -20
-26% -30 -27%
-40 -38% -41% -45% -50
-54% -60 El País ABC.es Okdiario El Mundo Telecinco eldiario.es El HuffPost El Periódico PlayGround 20minutos.es Diario Público Diario de Ibiza La Vanguardia BuzzFeed España Antena 3 Noticias Information for News Publishers 7
Mid-size publishers remained more stable
SELECTED MAJOR PUBLISHERS IN SPAIN AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT PER DAY 15 NOVEMBER 2017 - 15 MAY 2018
250 000
200 000
150 000
100 000
50 000
0 TV3 324 El País El Món ABC.es VilaWeb Okdiario El Mundo Telecinco eldiario.es El HuffPost El Periódico PlayGround Faro de Vigo 20minutos.es Diario Público ElNacional.cat La Vanguardia El Confidencial NacióDigital.Cat laSexta l Noticias Antena 3 Noticias
Nov 2017 May 2018 8 Facebook News Feed changes in Spain
Catalan publishers came down after Election peak, Spanish language publishers were affected less
SELECTED MAJOR CATALAN AND SPANISH LANGUAGE PUBLISHERS AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT PER DAY 15 NOVEMBER 2017 - 15 MAY 2018
SPANISH PUBLISHERS
120 000 Antena 3 Noticias
El Mundo 100 000 Diario Público
80 000 La Vanguardia
60 000 El País
CATALAN PUBLISHERS 40 000 TV3 20 000 324
0 ElNacional.cat
NacióDigital.Cat Dec-17 Jan-18 Feb-18 Mar-18 Apr-18 May-18 El Món
VilaWeb Information for News Publishers 9
Local newspapers grew the most
NEWS PUBLISHERS IN SPAIN ENGAGEMENT PERCENTAGE CHANGE 15 NOVEMBER 2017 - 15 MAY 2018
35 32% 30 27% 27% 25 23% 20% 20 16% 14.5% 15 13% 13% 13% 11% 10.5% 10% 10 8%
5
0 El Mundo CORDÓPOLIS Zamora News Diario de Ibiza El Confidencial Libertad Digital Canarias Ahora Diario de Sevilla Mallorca Zeitung El Progreso de Lugo La Verdad de Murcia Ultima Hora Mallorca La Voz de Galicia (Vigo) La Voz de Galicia (Ferrol) 10 Facebook News Feed changes in Spain
News pages’ video and link engagement dropped, photo engagement remained stable
ALL NEWS PUBLISHERS IN SPAIN ENGAGEMENT PERCENTAGE CHANGE 15 NOVEMBER 2017 - 15 MAY 2018
5 1% 0
-5
-10
-15
-20 -20% -25
-30 -32% -35
Video Link Photo Information for News Publishers 11
Recommendations for Newsrooms
FOLLOW DATA METHODICALLY.
1 »» Make data available daily. »» Observe the trends. »» Recognise changes. »» Investigate anomalies. »» Share your findings.
USE DATA AND FACTS TO HELP FINE-TUNE YOUR CONTENT 2 STRATEGY.
ASK US QUESTIONS. 3 »» We are here to help!
DON’T GET CAUGHT BY SURPRISE. 4 »» Data informed newsrooms need never panic.
AUTOMATE YOUR NEWS GATHERING AND POSTING FREQUENCY 5 WHERE POSSIBLE.
»» Ability to cover and publish relevant stories still matters a lot. »» Being fast in news publishing is still very important. 12 Facebook News Feed changes in Spain
Metrics used in this report
»» Publisher We look at each publisher’s main page (typically their major news page) on Facebook.
»» Engagement Sum of reactions, comments, and shares on posts on publishers’ Facebook page (on-post engagement) per day.
»» Trend 30 day average (sum of engagement for 30 days divided by 30).
»» Percentage Change Average daily engagement on first vs. last 30 days over a period.
»» Content type Content type of Facebook post (Link, Video, Photo). Video includes both video and live video if not specified otherwise. We look at average engagement per post for different content types.
»» Category Categorisation in EzyInsights Realtime and SoMe Index (e.g. News, Tabloids, Broadcasters, Radio, Magazines).
»» Date range The reports cover a 6 month period. ABOUT THIS STUDY
THIS STUDY HAS BEEN CONDUCTED BY EZYINSIGHTS - THE FASTEST NEWS GATHERING TOOL FOR NEWSROOMS AND JOURNALISTS.
01 EFFICIENT NEWS GATHERING
WE HELP 02 TOPIC RESEARCH AND CURATION
PUBLISHERS KNOW WHEN TO POST ON SOCIAL BASED IMPROVE THEIR 03 ON DATA AND AI EDITORIAL PERFORMANCE METRICS FOR SOCIAL AND 04 DIGITAL WORKFLOW BENCHMARK YOUR PERFORMANCE WITH 05 COMPETITORS
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