New Updates to Facebook Algorithm

If you don't already know, there is a Facebook algorithm to decide who sees your updates and when. These algorithms change all the time! Which means that as a business owner, you need to adjust your strategies as Facebook makes changes to their strategy

Facebook’s latest update is actually two separate updates this time.

These updates will impact your visibility in the News Feed not just for individual updates, but for your Page as a whole.

What does that mean? It means pay attention and make changes accordingly.

Wanna make sure you’re playing by the new rules as of February 1, 2017?

In an effort to show people the stories that are most relevant to them, the Facebook algorithm is making the following changes:

• Incorporating new signals to better identify and rank authentic content
• A new way to predict and rank in real-time when posts might be more relevant to you

So, Facebook is fine-tuning their ability to measure real-time signals, and they’re paying closer attention than ever to whether or not your updates are authentic.

In general, there are two major identifiers on Facebook:

• Personal signals are specific to you the user. These are effected by your personal behavior interacting with other posts. Ex: When you interact with someone on Facebook, you are more likely to see their feed in the future.
• Universal signals are specific to user or Page postings an update and are based on what is posted in general. Ex: If your business page frequently receives high engagement rates with likes and comments, the posts will be shown to more users.

New Signals to Identify Authentic Content

False and misleading news has been a serious issue in the past year on Facebook. Users want information that is genuine and not misleading, sensational or spammy.

But how can Facebook possibly stop this nonsense?

When ranking News Feed, Facebook looks at many signals personal to you, such as how close you are to the person or Page posting, as well as more universal signals like the overall engagement (likes, comments, shares) that a post has. So what did we all do? Game the system! We asked for engagement, we started exploiting images and videos for engagement and Facebook got mad.

With this update, Facebook is adding new universal signals to determine whether a post might be authentic. To do this, they categorized Pages to identify whether or not they were posting spam or trying to game feed by doing things like asking for likes, comments or shares. Facebook then used posts from these Pages to train a model that continuously identifies whether posts from other Pages are likely to be authentic. For example, if Page posts are often being hidden by people reading them, that’s a signal that it might not be authentic.

If a post is likely to be authentic based on the new signals we look at, it might show up higher in your feed.

What does that mean for you:

• You can not ask for likes, comments and shares. Some Pages explicitly ask people for likes, comments, and shares as a way of increasing their reach – a tactic that the Facebook algorithm believes is dishonest and inauthentic. Ask a question, but skip the words "like", "comment", or "share".
• Graphics only live streams
• Don't post inflammatory content people will report
• Don't post or share lies. Facebook has used the habits of Pages that regularly share inauthentic updates to build a model that can automatically identify and predict whether or not other Pages’ updates are authentic.

Updates to Real-Time Signals

When ranking feed to determine the relevance of a post, Facebook algorithm always looks at real-time signals, such as whether a friend has just commented on it. They continue to improve News Feed to evaluate the importance of different signals at different times.

With the new Facebook update, they will now take into account how signals change in real time. So now if there is a lot of engagement from many people on Facebook about a topic, or if a post from a Page is getting a lot of engagement, Facebook can understand in real-time that the topic or Page post might be temporarily more important to you, so they will show that content higher in your feed.

For example, if your football team, the Patriots, just won the Super Bowl, Facebook will show you posts about the game higher up in News Feed because people are talking about it more broadly on Facebook.

Does that mean that all of your Page updates should be relevant to the exact moment?

I hope not! You would never have time to work.

What you do isn’t always going to be that timely. In fact, an overwhelming majority of marketers prefers planning their Facebook updates well in advance. Even at Brand Dot Blog, we schedule based on a custom content calendar and offer 365 post created for the entire year. Obviously, this can not possibly be relevant to the exact moment...or can it?

What does that mean for you:

• Continue adding evergreen content that is relevant to your business
• BUT consider a content calendar with trending days like #HotdogDay
• And with regularly scheduled content, you are free to make those up-to-the-moment post as needed for big events - like the Super Bowl.

Will This Impact My Page?

Facebook anticipates that most Pages won’t see any significant changes to their distribution in the organic News Feed. Some Pages might see a small increase in referral traffic or outbound clicks, and some Pages might see minor decreases. Pages should continue to post stories that are relevant to their audiences.

What do you think of the Facebook algorithm changes?

Do these changes make sense to you?

Will they influence what you share on your feed in the future?

Do they address concerns you might have, or that you’ve had in the past?

Share your all your thoughts in the comments below!

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