'Fake News' Now Affects How You Post on Facebook

There's been one term that we haven't stopped hearing since the 2016 presidential election: fake news. Due to the increase in "fake news" stories circulating in the media, news outlets and social sites, especially Facebook, are doing everything they can to fight against these stories. Facebook has even implemented new policies regarding posting URL links and images on their news feed.

"How does this affect me as a Realtor®?"

Do you advertise listings on Facebook?

If you use Facebook to advertise your business, you are most likely creating content surrounding your available listings or blogs from your website. In the past, when you created a post on Facebook, you added your landing page's or website's URL to your post and had the ability to insert or change the image that would appear as the post preview.

Unfortunately, that isn't the situation anymore. To fight fake news stories, Facebook removed this function so that pages can't edit titles, images, or the description of the URL used.

Do you share content from other pages?

If you share content from other Facebook pages on your newsfeed, just like URL links and images, you can add your own comment; however, you aren't able to edit the title, image, or the description from their post. Facebook has even started punishing pages that continuously share fake news by not allowing these pages to purchase ads and, ultimately, taking down their profiles. So think twice before sharing what you think is "shareable" content.

As of right now, there's not much businesses can do regarding posting URLs and sharing content on their feeds. However, Facebook has listened to the complaints of their users and seems to be working on an alternative, but it isn't available to everyone just yet.

To view the original article, visit the Homes.com blog.