‘Tough pill to swallow’: LadBible boss on the traffic hit from Meta’s feed shake-up

Digital publishers struggle to reinvent business model after algorithm is changed in favour of promoting creator content “When I look back at 15 years of growth, it is a tough pill to swallow and disappointing,” says Alexander “Solly” Solomou. The chief executive of the digital publisher behind popular brands including LadBible is bemoaning the City’s reaction to a sharp drop-off in traffic after algorithm changes made by the owner of Facebook and Instagram. The change by Meta to more heavily promote creator content has sent a chill wind through digital publishers – from Solomou’s LBG Media to the owners of Marie Claire and the Daily Mail – which had relied on its platforms to promote clickable content and now face a scramble to reinvent business models that had flourished from relationships with Big Tech.Continue reading...