There’s a lot of misinformation swirling the web around Facebook’s NewsFeed update–and some of it is being published by outlets who are supposed to be experts in social media for small business. Here’s what you need to know about the updates Facebook has made to the NewsFeed.
It’s still EdgeRank; Facebook still doesn’t call it that. The algorithm that determines who sees what is still called EdgeRank–but Facebook still refers to the functionality as simply, the NewsFeed. The update really isn’t different from what it was before. In Facebook’s official blog post on the matter, they explain. “The goal of News Feed is to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them. Ideally, we want News Feed to show all the posts people want to see in the order they want to read them.” This has always been the goal, it’s just gotten more complex to deliver on, given how much content, including sponsored posts and paid advertising, there is for a user to see.
Interaction is still key. In the “old days” of NewsFeed, how a person interacts with a post determines what they see in the future. That’s still true. When a user likes something, that tells News Feed that they want to see more of it; when they hide something, that tells News Feed to display less of that content in the future. Additionally, who you interact with on Facebook, and how you’ve interacted iwth similar posts in the past plays a role. The new update essentially takes less “weight” out of when a post is published. So, if someone posted someone that all other indicators say you’d probably like–but it was posted two days ago, the new algorithm still considers that you might like it–and no longer “buries” it behind more recent stories.
Quality is now even more important than quantity. What you say has always been more important than how often you say it on Facebook, but the NewsFeed update makes that even more true today. If your posts are popular, there’s a better chance that others will see them–regardless of if you posted them an hour ago, or a few days ago.
