Have you been scratching your head trying to get your way around Facebook and how to get the best results for your posts? Just some basic understanding of Facebook algorithm can help you thrive when you start working on your posts and overall growth of your platform. But, it does takes time – take it one step at a time.

 

Breaking some myths:

• Posting more does not always mean you will gain results quicker; in fact, you should limit the number of weekly posts to avoid fatigue for the consumers.
• Striking a balance between over posting and irregular posting is important. A good average is 2 posts a week, but of course, you would want to make them interesting and relevant.
• Facebook no longer pushes out and prioritises videos under 60 seconds and are boosting longer videos of over 3mins with a 50s+ dwell time.

 

Feed algorithm – what gets pushed out and how?

• You will see posts on your feed by your close contacts and friends and gradually blends into some other posts, recommendations, etc. How does that work?
  • Facebook algorithm tracks your profile engagement with your network, the people you chat to more often through FB messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp (remember, they are all owned by Facebook); the people whose posts you engage with often, or whose post you have engaged with recently, even if that was liking their posts.
  • After the set of close contacts, the algorithm then pushes out the life event related posts over to you to ensure high engagement. Example: graduation, wedding posts. This is simply done, to revive your engagement with contacts you haven’t touched base in a long time, but its natural for you to like their post, give them wishes – after which they come in your circle of engagement and the cycle goes on again.
• You will see the posts from the profiles you have been checking, or in other words ‘stalking.’
  This conveys to the algorithm that you are interested to know about them and will engage well with their content.
  • For brands looking at more organic engagement and traction, they should try collaborating with other successful pages/groups that can through their posts send traffic to your page. This will fill the users onto your algorithm of interested people and push out your content to them.
• Dwelling on the above parameters – the algorithm then simplifies the data on three basic points as per BBC academy
  • Signals: How old is the post? How is your signal right now? (in case the connection is slow, they will push static and not video content) Who posted it?
  • Predictions: How likely are you to comment or share this post? This is based on your post share and comment history.
  • Relevancy score: Content is served to you in order of relevancy. This is basis your connections, your engagement with your connections, your engagement with the kind of posts.

The relevancy of the posts is the primary factor to drive engagement and reach to your post. Once you know what you want to communicate, the how’s of communicating can be looked into keeping in mind some small points that make a huge difference. Simple steps like engaging with your page followers, even by liking their comments on your earlier posts, or responding to their DMs regularly can go a long way.

 

Credits: Insightful session by BBC Academy on Understanding and beating the Facebook algorithm.