The updates Facebook made to the news feed today are a stroke of genius. Sure it’s going to piss brands off and really going to screw small businesses but Facebook stands to make loads of money as a result. Why? Because the only way brands will be able to reach their fans now will be to spend lots of money on targeted ads.

The Updates

1. Facebook uses EdgeRank to determine what stories I am most interested in and displays them at the top of my feed. This isn’t new but what they have removed is the “Most Recent” link that was found in the top right of the feed allowing me to see everything my network was posting. Now to see that content I have to scroll halfway down the page or more (depending on how active my network is) to the “Recent Stories” sections. This is where most of the updates from the brands I follow are appearing. Since I actively seek that content out, I will still see it, but the average user won’t bother to navigate beyond their top stories.

2.  A blue triangle has been added to the top left of any post EdgeRank deems to be a top story to help grab my attention. Great update for the average user but not so great for brands. As I scrolled way down my page to the brand content, none of those posts had a blue triangle. That’s because I rarely interact with the brands I follow and this is true of the average user as well. I don’t comment on or Like their posts but I do want to see and read them. Otherwise I’ll miss the breaking story from CNN or the hot sale Jet Blue.

3. An activity Ticker has been added to the right side of the page that floats down the page as you scroll. This shows all recent activity in your network. Anything from someone Liking a post, making a comment or adding a photo. It is the kitchen sink of your Facebook network. Unfortunately this is where brands now appear the most prominently. There is a slick mouse-over which reveals a large box displaying the content, but I doubt that mouse-over is getting tracked in Insights and can count towards a brand’s engagement metric.

So what does Facebook have to say to all those brands, like Diageo, who have plopped down millions to reach consumers on the platform? Following are the two sentences they provided in an email to brands that spend big money advertising on Facebook. The lesser brands and small businesses received no such update.

 Because these changes will help show people the most relevant content at the right time, we fully expect that the engagement on your Page posts will stay constant or increase after this update. However, you might see some variations in the distribution your Page posts are getting in Page Insights. 

I am struggling to believe that the engagement metrics for the brands I manage will stay the same or increase as a result of this update. I’ll be monitoring over the next few weeks/months and if that actually happens, I’ll name my unborn child Facebook MacLeod.