Facebook vows to crack down on promotional News Feed posts.

Facebook vows to crack down on promotional News Feed posts.

The promotional posts in question are made from company or product Pages, actual Facebook accounts that try to get around having to pay for advertising by essentially posting their advertisements on the News Feed.

Facebook is evidently in the business of revamping its News Feed these days. Last week, the social network announced that it would give users more control over which of their friends do and do not show up in the feed. Now, Facebook has made another new News Feed announcement, this time about the promotional content that pops up in the feed on a regular basis.

In a blog post published on Friday, Facebook is making some additional News Feed changes based on a recent survey. The survey asked users to share their feelings about News Feed content, and Facebook says that a number of consensus opinions gradually formed as more and more people were surveyed. In particular, it is clear that Facebook users are not thrilled about “organic” posts that try to promote a product, app, or sweepstakes, or that use content similar to that used in sidebar ads.

The promotional posts in question are made from company or product Pages, actual Facebook accounts that try to get around having to pay for advertising by essentially posting their advertisements on the News Feed. But Facebook users are tired of these promotional posts clogging up their feeds. People want to see more posts from their friends and fewer posts trying to sell them something.

Based on Friday’s blog post, Facebook has heard that plea. The social network says that, starting in January 2015, they will begin to crack down on promotional News Feed posts. It is currently unclear whether Facebook will penalize Pages for posting such promotional content, or if promotional posts will simply be filtered out before they reach users’ News Feeds. In any case, it appears that the News Feed in 2015 will be more about friends, and less about advertising.

It is possible that Facebook has an ulterior motive in mind here, though. While users will be happy to see fewer promotional posts in their feeds, this move could also force businesses doing promotion on Facebook to actually pay for advertising. While Facebook says the main drive here is to enhance user experiences, there is a chance that the maneuver could also boost advertising revenue.

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