Last week Facebook announced a change to the way they calculate organic impressions and reach. Facebook is rolling out this change to all pages the week of February 12th.
What is changing?
Previously, Facebook defined an organic impression as when a post was placed into a person s News Feed regardless of if the post appeared in the person s screen. Now, Facebook will include only the times the post enters a person s screen ("viewable impressions").
Why is Facebook making this change?
Facebook is making this change to provide more consistency between the way organic and paid metrics are calculated. Ads have long used the stricter "viewable impressions" criteria. As brands increasingly use both paid and organic in parallel, this change will allow for simpler comparison across both.
We agree that this is a positive change. But there will be some short term adjustment. Facebook will not update historical data. The change in measurement will be effective in February 2018. You'll need to be aware that Spredfast analytics, as well as Facebook native analytics, will report a drop in organic post impressions and reach in February 2018. It's important that you understand that this drop is due to a change in measurement, not a change in the way Facebook distributes your content.
How will this change impact Spredfast Analytics?
All Spredfast Analytics reporting on Facebook organic impressions and reach will be impacted by this change. This includes both Spredfast's long-standing Analytics solution as well as our Beta Analytics solution. It includes both impressions and reach metrics. It includes both page and post level metrics. It includes both organic and viral metrics.
Paid impressions and reach metrics should not be impacted.
Because this is a measurement change, not a change to the way Facebook distributes content, engagement and interaction metrics should not be impacted.
What scale of change should I expect?
Facebook says reported organic impressions and reach metric values will decease as much as 20%. In the short time we've been able to take a look, we've seen a decrease closer to 10%.
Facebook has provided a temporary tool in native Facebook Insights that allows you to compare Page Organic Reach using both measurement methodologies. You can get an idea of the scale of the impact on your page.
Let us know if you have any questions about this change.
