Every growing Facebook likes marketer has one thing that they all want to fully understand– the algorithm of Facebook.
The Facebook algorithm helps the massive number of posts that people and businesses share each day make sense. It is also responsible for choosing which posts will appear on one’s News Feed based on a lot of factors.
Of course, every Facebook marketer wants to understand how their posts are being viewed on the social media platform. To do that, you have to understand all the significant Facebook algorithm factors, updates, as well as changes.
Understanding the algorithm of Facebook begins with understanding what are the core values that the platform uses in order to guide their work and thinking. These values will help you have an understanding of what content will do and will not do well on Facebook.
The Objective of Social Media
The main objective of this social media platform is to connect people with their family and friends. So in its News Feed values, Facebook said that friends and family come first. For this reason, posts from users’ friends and family are the ones they see first.
Moreover, Facebook’s values also said that the platform is a platform for all ideas. This means that the social media giant welcomes all ideas while ensuring that every user is safe.
Authentic communication is also a priority for Facebook. So, it gives attention to genuine news stories rather than those that are sensational, misleading, and spammy.
Facebook also understands that users know themselves best. So, the social media giant allows them to customize their News Feed using the see first and unfollow features.
Lastly, Facebook constantly strives to get feedback from users in order to improve the platform.
Facebook Algorithm: An Overview
Now that you have a background on what the values of Facebook are, it is time to dive deeper and find out what its algorithm is.
One thing worth noting is that the algorithm of Facebook loves posts that have a significant engagement. This means that the algorithm pays more attention to posts that have many likes, comments, as well as shares. If your posts receive a lot of engagements in a short span of time, them the algorithm of the platform will love it more.
In addition, video content with a high number of views is another thing that Facebook’s algorithm pays attention to. Also, posts with a timely or trending topic is another thing that you must have if you want the algorithm to be beneficial to you.
On the other hand, you need to watch out for posts that are clickbait, like-baiting, spammy posts, redundant posts, as well as text-only statuses from Facebook pages. The reason is that the algorithm of Facebook pays very little to no attention to such types of posts.
Moreover, Facebook posts that are reported or hidden frequently is a sign that they have low quality. This is another thing that the platform’s algorithm does not like at all.
Another thing that you should not do is to ask for likes, share, and comment. Facebook might deem it as a clickbait and will not show it on the News Feed of users.
The Relevant Changes to Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm
High-quality News
Facebook is now going to prioritize informative news stories that came from trustworthy publishers.
According to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the news will always be a vital way for individuals to begin with a conversation about important topics. For this reason, the social media giant made a new major update in order to assure that the news stories on a user’s News Feed are all of the high quality.
Facebook will particularly focus on news that came from publications that are rated by the community as trustworthy. In addition, the platform will also prioritize news that users find informative as well as relevant to their community.
Meaningful Interactions
Posts that came from a Facebook user’s friends or family will be the first ones that they will see on their News Feed.
Facebook’s main goal is to make sure that the time users spend on the platform is spent well. For this reason, Facebook made changes to the algorithm of its News Feed to give more space for people to interact with other users that they care about.
In order to do that, the platform’s algorithm would prioritize posts that come from a user’s family and friends instead of public content from groups or pages. This is because the social media giant believes that face to face communication is a lot more important than a person to page connection.
In addition, Zuckerberg said that Facebook users would be seeing posts from the groups they follow aside from their friends and family. That being said, it would be a good time for brands to begin investing in a Facebook group that they could use to reach their target audiences.
Engagement Bait
In 2017, Facebook said that it would down-rank pages whose posts are prompting users to interact with likes, shares, and comments, as well as other actions.
The social media platform found out that Facebook uses do not like engagement bait posts. Examples of such posts are those that are boldly asking users to like the posts or the page that posted them.
Such types of posts are trying to take advantage of Facebook News Feed’s algorithm by improving their engagement. This way, they will be able to get a greater reach. But since Facebook found out about what some pages are doing, it started demoting individual posts form people as well as pages that utilize engagement bait.
According to Facebook, there are five types of engagement bait. These are the voting, react, share, tag, as well as comment baiting.
Furthermore, Facebook users who used engagement bait to their posts will experience a decrease in their reach. Also, Facebook encourages its users to focus on posting relevant, meaningful, and important stories as well as to refrain from using engagement bait tactics on their posts.
