Digital Week in Review: Facebook Tweaks Algorithm, Microsoft’s Big Layoffs, The Good and Bad of Social Media Marketing Infographic

In this week’s Digital Week in Review: Facebook tweaks its algorithm, Microsoft lays off thousands of employees, and The Good and Bad of Social Media Infographic.

Facebook Tweaks Its Algorithm

Facebook has made two changes to its News Feed algorithm with the hope of making the content that users see more timely. Users will now see posts related to trending topics ranked higher, and “liking” or “commenting” activity from users will be posted to your timeline more quickly. Posts that users did not scroll down far enough to see but got a lot of engagement will also start to be bumped back up towards the top sooner so that more people can see them.

These tweaks are going to be “rolled out gradually” and users will not see  “significant changes in distribution” according to a Newsroom post by software engineer Erich Owens and engineering manager David Vickrey.

“Our goal with News Feed is to show everyone the right content at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them. We’ve heard feedback that there are some instances where a post from a friend or a page you are connected to is only interesting at a specific moment — for example, when you are both watching the same sports game, or talking about the season premiere of a popular TV show. There are also times when a post that is a day or two old may not be relevant to you anymore. Our latest update to News Feed ranking looks at two new factors to determine if a story is more important in the moment than other types of updates.” – Erich Owens and David Vickrey

Microsoft Lays Off Over 2000 Employees

Yesterday Microsoft let 2,100 employees go, 747 of those employees were in the Seattle-Richmond area where the company has its headquarters. Microsoft had previously announced its plans to cut 18,000 jobs; 15000 were cut right away, with yesterday’s 2,100 still leaving almost 300 more jobs to still go.

Microsoft acquired an influx of employees when it bought most of Nokia’s hardware assets which ended up being a drag on the company’s earnings per share in the most recent quarter. Microsoft just simply could not afford to pay all these workers.

Infographic- The Good and the Bad of Social Media Marketing

OutMarket has created an infographic which outlines both the good and bad of social media marketing. There are many good points; 80% of consumers seek out user reviews on social media, 74% of 16-24 year olds always have their phones on them, and 90% of the world’s data was that was created in the last few years was mostly thanks to social media. However, almost 50% of CMOs are still not totally convinced of the value that social media holds.

For  more interesting stats see below, or for the full info graphic click here.