So how does Facebook decide which post will position higher - if at all - in the news feed?
By sending the Facebook algorithm on a hunt for very specific signals.
Details inside the video!
Hey it’s Chia from Brand24 and today I want to talk about the Facebook algorithm, including
all the basic stuff that any marketer, social media manager or business owner should know
before they start to dedicate any real time or resources to this platform.
So, no matter what you’re doing on Facebook - whether you’re in charge of your company’s
Facebook page or if you’re an influencer-in-the-making, the goal is the same: to get your content
in front of as many eyes as possible.
In other words, you want to maximize your social media reach on Facebook - which is
a metric that speaks to the number of people that see your post.
Given some of the latest updates to the Facebook algorithm, which is focused on creating “meaningful
interactions” that spark conversations (that is marketing speak for comments, shares and
a few other ways of interacting with a post), the best way to maximize your reach is through
engagement.
Facebook considers the following interactions to be the most “meaningful” in their algorithm:
comments, reactions, replies to comments, shares through Messenger, as well as the engagement
rate for these shares.
In a lengthy post addressing significant Facebook updates, Mark Zuckerberg stated that public
content (that means it's coming from businesses, brands and media) should inspire “meaningful interactions”
if they want to position higher (or at all) in the newsfeed, which puts COMMENTS at the
top of the list.
Reactions are also significant, and if somebody ‘loves’ or reacts to your post using any
of the other, more active emojis instead of the typical thumbs up sign, Facebook also takes
this into consideration.
And back to those “meaningful interactions”.
One of the most meaningful interactions that we can have with any other human being is a conversation.
That’s why threads and replies to specific comments under your post also carry weight
in the algorithm.
And this also applies to Messenger.
If someone publicly shares your post on their wall, this is... this is great! But if they share your
post with a really specific person through Messenger, it makes the act of sharing that much more
meaningful and personalized.
This could become even more significant, especially with the integration of major messaging apps
like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram - but more on that for another time.
And to make this just a little bit more meta, the Facebook algorithm also considers how
much engagement those shares of your post gets.
So, beyond just getting shares, those shares themselves also need to have their own comments,
their own reactions and even other shares to really work in your favor.
So, these are the 5 types of engagement that are responsible for sending important signals
to Facebook about whether your post will really spark “meaningful interactions” - at least
according to them.
But now, what does Facebook do with all these signals?
They use them to decide whether your post will actually make it into someone’s newsfeed!
And they make this decision in 4 basic moves:
First, Facebook will take inventory of all the content that it has available to show
a user - this includes posts from that user’s Facebook friends as well as public posts
from brands, businesses and media.
Next, Facebook will look at all the signals for a post - including those signals for meaningful
interactions that we just mentioned above - along with some other details like the publisher, how
old the content is, how much time people spend on it, and... and more.
Then, based on a user’s past behavior, like interactions with this publisher or similar
posts, Facebook will predict how likely it is that a user will like or interact with
your post.
(I’ll add now that, according to studies from the PEW Research Center, 27% of people
feel like Facebook doesn’t get them.
This can mean 1 of 3 things: one, that the algorithm isn’t perfect, which is probably
true.
Two, that people don’t necessarily have to like or agree with a post to click on it,
comment on it or engage with it, which is also probably true.
Or option 3… all of the above.
My money’s on 3.)
So, finally, taking all these factors into consideration - that’s Inventory, Signals
and Predictions - Facebook assigns each post with a Score.
Since each user has different interests, preferences and past behavior, the score for 1 piece of
content will be different for each user.
And this is a basic look at how the Facebook algorithm works, taking the latest updates
that favor “meaningful interactions” and “posts that spark conversations” into
consideration.
I hope this helps you gain a better understanding of the things that really count when it comes
to working with the algorithm, so that you can make each post go a little bit farther
and maximize your reach on a very specific platform, like this one.
And that’s all for this week!
If you have any questions, something to add, or a suggested topic for next week, you can
go ahead and let me know in the comments section below.
And if you found this video helpful, feel free to Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube
channel, where I’ll be explaining how you can do even more in social media and digital
marketing each week.
Thanks so much for watching and I hope you learned something new - I’ll see you next
time.
Bye!