The New Facebook Algorithm 2018 And Everything You Need To Know

The Facebook Algorithm is constantly changing, that it’s hard for users and brands to keep up. The reason for these constant changes are to provide a better user experience, Mark Zuckerberg assures. 

Facebook wants to make sure, that we have meaningful interactions and is, therefore, prioritizing posts from family and friends in the Newsfeed.

In their public announcement they pointed out, that Business Pages will see a decrease in engagement and even more so if Pages make posts that are not engaging.

“Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect.”

This change in the Facebook Algorithm sparked a lot of fury amongst businesses. All the hard work people were putting in and then having to fight your way to the top. That is, of course, quite frustrating.

So let’s take a look at how the new Facebook Algorithm works.

Facebook believes that a person-to-person connection is more important than a person-to-page connection.

Think about it. How many times do you see a funny video or meme and send it to your friends via Messenger? Or even tag them in the comments?

This is a reason why such pieces of content get ranked higher in your Newsfeed. Because people interact with it.

You need to produce content that adds value and is meaningful to your audience. And meaningful can also mean funny, because it gets you to react.

Ranking Factors in the new Facebook Algorithm

Facebook will favor engaging content which drives to interaction, as I just mentioned.

So here are some factors which contribute to ranking in the Newsfeed:

• Engagement (how many likes, how many comments)
• Time spent on content
• People interacting with the content (through tagging their friends or sharing over Messenger)
• Sharing (if the post gets shared and how many times)
• Who shares it (content is more likely to appear if friends share something)

Now some may think that a clever way to reach engagement is tag/comment baiting. Let me tell you, that this is not the way to go. It has been mentioned before, that Facebook highly frowns upon this and it may be a reason for you to get dismissed from the Newsfeed.

Here is an example of an engaging piece of content from Deliveroo, who is doing a really good job on Facebook.

The post is simple, yet funny and engaging and relevant to Deliveroo’s audience. That’s why it has been shared 87 times and liked by more than 5.1K users!

However, there are also alternatives you can focus on, if your Facebook Business Page and the new algorithm is giving you nightmares.

Here are some alternative channels you can focus on instead of the Facebook Business Pages:

• Facebook Groups
• Messenger Marketing
• Instagram
• Facebook Ads
• Private Facebook
• Stories: Instagram + Facebook

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