*Our Social Media Exec Suzi delves into the deep, dark, depths of Facebook algorithms in the first part of this blog series which aims to uncover some of the secrets of social news feeds. *
As social media channels continue to grow, our news feeds are bombarded with more and more content on a daily basis. Sometimes it can all get a bit much! Thankfully, the social media wizards in their headquarters are there to take the stress and aggravation out of trawling through hundreds and hundreds of irrelevant posts from people you used to know. By creating handy personalised algorithms for each user they have made our social surfing time a more enjoyable experience.
But how do they work? How do those guys sitting in Facebook HQ in sunny California know what I want to see on my feed? Well, this short blog series aims to answer those questions, and explain exactly how these mind-boggling algorithms work across the three main platforms, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
First stop on the algorithm express is the giant that is Facebook. There has been a lot of talk over the past few months as to whether Facebook has had its day, and with so many fresh, new platforms on the scene is its time in the spotlight as the number one social media channel over? If you ask me, I don’t think Facebook has anything to worry about. With over 1 billion monthly active users I think they’re safe.
But with this huge amount of users comes an equally mammoth amount of content, 90% of which you probably aren’t interested in. Facebook realised this way back in 2006 when it (link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/facebook-gets-a-facelift/2207967130/ text: introduced its first algorithm-based feed) in an effort to create an all-round better online experience for its users. Obviously over the past 10 years these algorithms have seen updates upon updates upon updates, with a side of, oh you guessed it, more updates. As it stands today the algorithm is based around a set of core aspects, including relevancy, content type and relationships. But what exactly affects your own personalised algorithm I hear you cry? Well the list below is a summary of just some of the main aspects.
Relevancy
– Time spent on a post is a real tell-tale factor of its relevancy to users. So if you click into a post, whether that be someone’s photo album, video or a link posted, and leave it straight away this tells Facebook you didn’t enjoy it. Next time around that content won’t be prioritised.
– Facebook has also started monitoring this in much more depth recently. The latest update to the algorithm takes into account how long a user spends on a third party website/instant article after the page has finished loading. This helps to fight clickbait and slow loading low quality pages showing on your feed, as we all know this can get very annoying “OMG this guy brought a Big Mac and you’ll NEVER guess what he found…”. Yeah, no thanks.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/clickbait1.png alt: clickbait)
Content
– The type of content you interact with the most, either by liking, commenting or sharing, is more likely to boosted up your news feed. So if you are a serial photo commenter but don’t interact with links then, yes you guessed it, posts that include photos will be set as a priority on your feed. Simple.
– Video engagement is a very important factor as well. After carrying out some research Facebook found that people may enjoy video content but do not necessarily like or comment on it. So they devised a different way of measuring people’s interest – turning on the audio, switching to full-screen or enabling HD all factor into the algorithm and tell Facebook you enjoyed the content, therefore bumping video content up your feed.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Guardian-video.png alt: Guardian video)
Relationships
– The people you engage with regularly also, unsurprisingly, get bumped up your feed. Facebook works out your “close friends” by taking into account whose content you regularly like, comment, share and click through to, who’s photos you browse, profile you go on, and even who you talk to on Messenger.
– The same thing goes for pages you like, so brands/companies/news outlets you regularly interact with and take an interest in will take priority on your feed.
– Not totally satisfied that they were showing users the most important updates by just using the aforementioned method, Facebook introduced the “See first” feature in preferences in 2015. This enabled users to actually select people or pages they wanted to see first in their news feed, effectively creating their own algorithm. But this hasn’t taken off across everyone’s feeds, I personally don’t know many people who are aware of this option or let alone have enabled it. So the Facebook algorithm is still important.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/see-first-facebook.png alt: see-first-facebook)
Of course this is not an extensive list of exactly everything that is factored into these ever-changing, ever-growing algorithms, there are tonnes of elements that are all considered all with one aim, to make your social surfing time more enjoyable.
The big question is, what does all of this mean for brands? Well it’s simple, content is key. A brand’s content needs to cover the three areas listed above – engaging, relevant, timely, stands out from the crowd, tailored to their demographic and quite simply, shows people what they want to see. Brands that manage to achieve this in turn gain engagement and interaction from users, which means their content is boosted up people’s feeds and exposed to as many people as possible. Why not try mixing up your content and testing out the algorithm for yourself!