What you see when you log onto Facebook (FB) might change in the near future. And while the change may not seem like something FB stock investors should care about, it could have an impact on the bottom line down the road.
Yesterday, Facebook announced plans to crack down on “clickbait” in its news feed — you know, those articles with catchy headlines and little substance that are meant to … well, bait you to click on them.
These days, clickbait is just about everywhere you turn. And that’s because, on the Internet, if there’s advertising involved, there’s a “cost per click” involved. So in turn, clicks equal gold. (Yes, that’s precisely why you see slideshow after slideshow after slideshow on the Interwebs. Each slide is its own click, meaning its own ad cents.)
In turn, clicks often come at the expense of content that actually provides quality or value — in your news feed and beyond. Have no fear, though. Facebook is here to save the day.
Kind of.
Facebook’s new focus does indeed reward higher quality, or at least more genuinely compelling, content. The company is planning to consider how long readers actually spend, you know, reading (or at least scrolling through or staring at) the page they click to when they rank news feed links.
But don’t think for a second that this is because Facebook actually cares for a second about content quality at large.
Facebook Cares About Advertisers, Not Clickbait
Facebook cares because the focus on what many are calling “attention minutes” as opposed to mere clicks is a mega-trend in the media industry that could completely reshape advertising spend (a huge factor for the success of FB stock) … so Facebook is smart to get out ahead of the curve.
See, Facebook isn’t the first site to rebel against the standard “cost per click” metric. Critics have long argued that a mere click is hardly a representation of the quality of those eyeballs advertisers are paying for. How many times have you clicked on an article only to exit out of it just seconds later? If you’re like me, you’ve probably clicked on articles that you’ve actually never read a second of … and therefore never seen an ad for … whether because you got distracted, didn’t mean to click in the first place, or opened it in a new tab only to forget you did so minutes later.
As an alternative, many argue that you should instead consider just what Facebook is now considering: Whether or not readers are actually staying, and maybe even engaging, after that first fateful click. For proof, look no further that king of clickbait Upworthy, which announced a similar shift way back in February.
In a blog post called “What Uniques And Pageviews Leave Out (And Why We’re Measuring Attention Minutes Instead),” Upworthy explained further:
“We love thinking this way because it rewards us for sharing content that people really enjoy and find valuable — not just stuff they click on a lot. It may mean that we don’t do quite as well on uniques or pageviews, but that’s a trade-off we’re happy to make because this is a metric focused on real audience satisfaction.”
Whether we’re talking about Upworthy or Facebook, though, the trade-off from clicks to this new form of “audience satisfaction” only matters because audience is still what advertisers are paying for. And that’s precisely why it does matter for FB stock.
As of this writing, Robert Martin did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
