Ever wonder what a Facebook algorithm actually looks like in action?

No matter how much you hear about the things Facebook wants you to do – and doesn’t want you to do – actually understanding how all those rules and guidelines come together in an algorithm can be tricky.

There’s no doubt that it’s harder than ever to reach your audience on Facebook. But it’s not impossible. You just need to understand how Facebook’s algorithm works now.

In 2018, Facebook announced massive changes to its algorithm. Two of the most important lines from their announcement are these:

“We will prioritize posts from friends and family over public content, consistent with our News Feed values”

“Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect”

This means that brands must find a way to create content that creates conversations between friends.

Facebook doesn’t just want people engaging with your page and content. Instead, they want people sharing it, commenting on it and send it to others via Messenger.

There are four things Facebook takes into consideration when deciding how your page ranks in the newsfeed: inventory, signals, prediction, and score.

Inventory

This is the phrase Facebook uses for all the content on Facebook including posts from friends, groups, and pages.

Signals

There are certain “signals” Facebook takes into consideration which content shows up in the newsfeed. Some of these signals include:

• Comments and likes on a person’s status
• Engagement with publisher content posted by friends
• Shares on messenger
• Replies to comments on a video
• Who posted the content
• When it was posted
• Content type
• Average time spent on content
• How informative the post is
• Completeness of profile

Predictions

Facebook uses your profile and previous behaviors to decide what to show you. Facebook tries to determine how likely you are to interact with content by what you have interacted with in the past.

Score

This is the value assigned to content that determines its “relevancy” to a user. The score will be different for everyone but the higher the score, the more likely it is to appear in the feed.

Facebook uses signals and predictions to score all of their inventory and then uses the scores to create the order of the feed.

What Does All of This Mean for Brands?

Facebook has made it clear that they’re prioritizing posts from people over brands. And you’ve probably seen a decrease in your reach and engagements this past year.

However, they did not completely close the door between users and brand pages. There’s still a small crack that brands can leverage.

It’s engagement. 

Brands need to ask themselves: how can our content spark conversations?

Your quality should be high quality, thorough and interesting. Always ask yourself what gets people talking.

Here are a few ideas on how to get people talking

• Ask a question in the post caption or in the headline. Be careful not to bait users into liking or commenting. For example “Comment ‘yes’ below if you agree” can be seen as engagement bait by Facebook and your post won’t rank on the feed.
• Bring a new angle to industry news or topics.
• Tell a story. Storytelling has long been one of the best ways to engage and entertain users.
• A little controversy! Of course, don’t go overboard with this last tip. Angering your audience isn’t worth the reach.

Do your audience research and pay attention to what entices your audience to click and comment. *Edgar user tip! Use variations to test out different copy and calls to action on your Facebook post. You can quickly learn what types of copy your audience reacts to.

It’s also important to maintain best practices when posting on Facebook. Page credibility impacts your score so keep consistent with your posts and remember to check your analytics to find out when your audience is most active.

Facebook is constantly evolving and they will probably have many more changes in the future. Our best tip is to keep engaging with your audience, listen to what they want provide it to them. With these tips, you are sure to beat any algorithm!

Also read: https://markethive.com/group/crowd?rotate=members

Also read: https://markethive.com/group/marketing?rotate=members

Save on Travel