You’ve probably heard rumors and skimmed over a few articles (or their headlines) to try and make sense of how Facebook is changing – especially after the platform went down for a few hours on October 4th, and the platform continues to face some legal heat regarding their news feed algorithm and ad targeting. Earlier this year, Facebook came out with an article explaining how the news feed predicts what you want to see; which leads Facebook into the popular, privacy vs. personalization debate. While Facebook continues to try to be transparent about how they handle user information, as of now, the algorithm takes 4 things into consideration: recency, relationship, type of content, and engagement.
Recency
When it comes to displaying relevant content to each user, the Facebook algorithm will always rank recent posts higher. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that every time your friends’ post something new it will show up in chronological order. Facebook takes all 4 factors into consideration before displaying any content.
Relationship
Facebook’s machine learning system picks up on who you interact with the most/least and will always opt to show you more content from those you actually interact with on the platform (friends, businesses, messages, tags, follows, etc.).
Type Of Content
Whether you’re on Facebook to chat with friends or you spend hours watching videos, the machine learning system can tell. This way, the platform can continue to show you content that you interact with the most.
Engagement
It’s true that the more engaging a piece of content is, the longer it ‘stays alive’. That means that if the content is gaining quite a bit of attention it will be shown more than something that wasn’t engaged with at all.
How To Make It Work For You
Post Often
The more quality content you push out, the more chances your account has to gain attention. It’s important to make sure the content is relevant to your audience or it could gain some negative feedback.
Engage With Your Audience
Doing things like replying to comments, following other brands, liking posts, and more can help keep your account in the spotlight for a little longer. The algorithm prioritizes posts that users are currently interacting with. Pro-tip, try to get your audience to interact with each other; it’s been proven to increases the post’s lifespan and overall reach!
Aim For Different Reactions
It’s been said that for the last few years, the algorithm has started to rank other reactions higher than a simple Like. Try using different reactions for users to ‘vote’ with, or posting something sentimental to gain a different (positive) reaction.
Schedule Your Posts
We’ve said this before, save yourself time and stress by scheduling posts out in advance. Recency is a key factor in determining what a user sees so posting regularly and during times that your audience is offline is a great way to get users engaged when they log back on.
Utilize Your Story
Many users don’t realize that Facebook Story’s aren’t included in the algorithm. Posting to your story regularly will help keep your account in the eyes of users that interact with you the most. In a recent Facebook study, they found that 58% of people say they’ve visited a brand’s website after watching a story. Why not tap into that free feature?!
We hope this has helped you understand more about how to utilize Facebook to your advantage whether you have a personal account, business account, or both! For all your social media account management and advertising needs, our team here at Three Ring Focus is here to help! Don’t hesitate to reach out!