The Facebook algorithm determines which posts people see every time they check their Facebook feed, and in what order those posts show up.
Essentially, the Facebook algorithm evaluates every post. It scores posts and then arranges them in descending, non-chronological order of interest for each individual user. The algorithm is all about helping users discover new content and connect with the stories they care the most about.
Keeping spam and unwanted content at bay. The recent Facebook algorithm changes have aimed to address concerns about content, as well as privacy.
How does it work?
Facebook tries to find out what type of content intrigues the user. They want to provide only relevant and meaningful content in your feed. Each post is ranked based on these main signals to determine where it appears in your Feed.
Who posted it: You’re more likely to see content from sources you interact with, including friends and businesses.
Type of content: If you most often interact with video, you’ll see more video. If you engage with photos, you’ll see more photos. You get the idea.
Interactions with the post: Feed will prioritize posts with a lot of engagement, especially from people you interact with a lot.
Here are 3 tips for working with the Facebook algorithm:
1. Understand what your audience wants to see
Facebook prioritize meaningful and informative content.
Meaningful: Receive stories and posts, based on past behaviour that they want to talk to their friends about.
Informative: Content someone will find “new, interesting, and informative,” which will vary by user.
Understanding what will be meaningful and informative to your specific audience means you need to understand their unique interests and behaviours. That means you need to do some audience research.
2. Don’t try to manipulate the algorithm
The goal is to not manipulate the algorithm but to try and understand how the algorithm works so you can learn what Facebook considers valuable for its users.
The importance of researching your audience is vital. Then create content that will resonate with them and in turn send positive ranking signals to the algorithm.
Trying to manipulate the algorithm to get more distribution than your content merits based on those ranking signals is a big no-no. This might include, for instance, paying for engagement or comments or engaging in other black-hat strategies to manipulate reach can influence your ranking signal badly.
Facebook considers this spam. Don’t do it.
The simple message here: Work with the algorithm, not against it.
3. Engage with your audience
The algorithm prioritizes posts from Pages that a user has interacted with in the past. This means that bumping up your reply game is key. If a person takes the time to comment on your post, don’t waste the opportunity. Making them feel heard with a reply makes it more likely they will continue to comment on your posts in future. This, of course, sends more engagement signals to the algorithm. Ignore them and they’ll likely go silent in return.
At the same time a brand must remember to get their audience to engage with each other. The algorithm values content that people want to share and discuss with their friends. If a post triggers a lot of conversation among a user’s friends, the algorithm applies “action-bumping logic” to show the post later again to the user.
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