What Facebook Says

There has been yet another algorithm change to the Facebook newsfeed.  According to Facebook they are listening to what users are saying and have found a way to keep relevant, high quality content at the forefront.  But how?

Here’s a snippet from a post on Facebook for Business:

While the goal of News Feed is to show high quality posts to people, we wanted to better understand what high quality means. To do this we decided to develop a new algorithm to factor into News Feed. To develop it, we first surveyed thousands of people to understand what factors make posts from Pages high quality. Some of the questions we asked included:

• Is this timely and relevant content?
• Is this content from a source you would trust?
• Would you share it with friends or recommend it to others?
• Is the content genuinely interesting to you or is it trying to game News Feed distribution? (e.g., asking for people to like the content)
• Would you call this a low quality post or meme?
• Would you complain about seeing this content in your News Feed?

We used the results of this survey to build a new machine learning system to detect content defined as high quality. The system uses over a thousand different factors, such as how frequently content from a certain Page is reported as low quality (e.g., hiding a Page post), how complete the Page profile is, and whether the fan base for a particular Page overlaps with the fan base of other known high quality Pages. Coming up with an algorithm to detect this is complex, and we will continue to refine it as we get more feedback.

Ultimately what’s happening is Facebook’s new “machine” decides what’s timely, relevant and trustworthy.  If your content fits the bill, people will see it.  If you’re sharing memes, begging for likes and shares or sharing what Facebook deems as junk, your posts will not get the same traction they once did.  Why?  Because Facebook simply won’t show it to anyone.  These posts won’t make it past your business page’s wall.

What Does it All Mean?

If you’re not sharing junk, you’re fine.  Keep on keeping on.  You shouldn’t change anything unless you want to.  Keep posting good quality content that people will like and share.  No gimmicks.  You’re golden!

If you are posting meme’s, eCards and other low quality content, just to garner engagement, stop.  It does you no good.  You’re going to be forced to think about what you share.  Think before posting.  Put some effort into your updates.  A little planning and some good content and you’re game will totally be changed.  It doesn’t mean what you’re doing is wrong, it just means that Facebook doesn’t like it.

Here’s a question:  The people that like your page because you share memes and cat pictures…are they actually helping your business?  No, they aren’t.  So, they are not your target audience and you don’t want to market to them anyway.  You have to know your audience; your customers.  Who buys what you’re selling?  Those are the people you want to like your page.  They are the ones that will stick around to find out what you  have to say.  Changing up your posting practices will open up the possibility of your page being seen by the right people.

Confused about the change?  Don’t know how to match your content to your audience?  Wondering how to get your posts in front of more eyes?  Let us help.  Call today and set up a consultation.