Facebook News Feed helps you connect to your interest, family, friends, and more. Helps you connect with what matters most – to you. The best part is that it’s all in one place, but really everywhere you are. Facebook’s goal is to show you, and every user on its platform the most valuable content to the user viewing it. But every day there’s more and more content created, far more than any human, or machine can possibly consume, even in a lifetime, or many. To solve this issue and make sure that users continue to engage, Facebook uses proprietary algorithms. These Facebook algorithms help order all the posts you see or do not see, all in real-time. Naturally, this can get pretty complex, let’s look at this a bit closer.
The Original Facebook News Feed
Back in 2004 when Facebook launched, there was no News Feed. To see content, from a friend or source of interest, you had to first find and connect with them, then go to their profile to see what they posted. And you can still do that today of course. Fast forward to 2006, Facebook launches News Feed to connect friends, family, and indeed the entire world, all In one place. News Feed is what you see when you first log into Facebook.
Everyone’s News Feed Is Different
Mine looks very different compared to yours. In fact, technically, no one’s News Feed is the same. So how does Facebook really determine what we all see?
On any given day there are thousands of potential sources of content you can see in your News Feed. Facebook uses News Feed Ranking to determine what you see at the top. If you’re into sports, you will likely see your favorite sport or team. More of a croche lover, well you will more of that. Let’s break this down a bit.
News Feed Ranking In Detail
There are four components that largely help decide everyone’s News Feed ranking.
Inventory
Think of it as all the posts, content, you can potentially see. For someone like me, it might be marketing articles and mar-tech news, photography topics, and of course my favorite sports team (Go Panthers).
Signals
Say there’s a post with my team announcing they hired a new coach. From this post, Facebook gathers certain Signals. These signals can be things like who posted it, how I’ve interacted with similar content in the past, the type of post it is, photo, video, link, or something else.
Predictions
Facebook uses these signals to make predictions about each post. It predicts how relevant it is, whether I’m likely to interact with it, and if it’s worth my time in order to engage with it. Although tough at times, I like to know all that happens with my team, and chances are good that I will like the next update also.
The Score
Facebook News Feed algorithm calculates a score for each post based on inventory, signals, and predictions. Higher scores show up higher up in the News Feed.
News Feed Algorithms Are Not Perfect
Algorithms, like the people that build them, are not perfect. Facebook provides a number of tools to help users customize their personal experiences even more. For example, in News Feed Preferences you can choose your Favorites – the top thirty people you want to see most. There’s even an option to order posts chronologically by using the Most Recents tool. You might even have noticed Surveys to get direct feedback from users.
Content That Violates Facebook’s Policy
Content that violates Facebook’s policies is often removed before users ever get a chance to see it. This is done by content moderators and machine learning. If it’s offensive but does not meet the removal standards, that content will get a low score, thus show up way at the bottom of the News Feed.
News Feed Helps You See What You’re Interested In
Although hard to believe, everyone’s news feed is different, tailored to each individual’s preference. Next time you see whatever you see you will have a better idea of why and how it works.
Facebook Advertising To Grow Your Business
Knowing how Facebook decides what users see in their News Feeds, you might wonder how can my great business show up in a news feed when most people don’t know me and thus haven’t yet shown any relevant engagement signals? That’s where Facebook Advertising and Overtop Media Digital Marketing experts can help. Our marketing experts are the best in town. We partner with Facebook For Business in order to drive real and meaningful connections that increase sales. Call Today for a free consultation.
