From today (Monday 12 February), the organic reach of Facebook pages will be measured by how many times a post is viewed on a user’s screen – consistent with the way in which paid ads are measured on the platform.

Organic reach for pages was previously calculated based on how many times a post appeared in the News Feed.

The change, which was previously announced in November 2016, was highlighted in a blog post, and comes into effect this week.

The social network has said that this is not a change to News Feed distribution, and that other engagement metrics will remain the same. The change is expected to lead to lower organic reach figures for businesses.

The update follows Facebook’s announcement that it was updating its News Feed algorithm to place greater emphasis on posts from friends and families, rather than public posts from brands and media.

The Page Insights interface has also been redesigned to show advertisers and agencies the most commonly used metrics at the top, including:

•          General page diagnostics, such as likes, reach and engagement numbers
•          Results of actions recently taken, such as post performance
•          Preview of new page engagement, such as demographic information on new followers