If Facebook marketing is a significant part of your brand's social strategy, the algorithm and what it looks for when ranking material will affect the success of your content. Learn how to take advantage of Facebook's algorithm as we explain what it is, how it works, and how to defeat it.
What exactly is the Facebook algorithm?
Simply put, the Facebook algorithm decides what material a person sees when they open the platform.
This choice is made based on a massive collection of behind-the-scenes instructions known as "the algorithm." The Facebook algorithm considers variables such as post type, engagement history, and how many of Facebook's fundamental principles the material adheres to (more on that later).
The algorithm not only decides the order of the material, but it also determines whether the item appears at all.
Here's a sobering statistic: the average reach of an organic post is only 5.5 percent of the followers of a Facebook Page. A little more than 5%! The algorithm is to blame for reducing your 8000 followers to less than 450 pairs of eyes. But there are reasons for this.
Why is the Facebook algorithm your friend?
Contrary to common perception, Facebook's algorithm is not simply an arbitrary, power-hungry, money-hungry monster meant to torture advertisers worldwide. It is, for the most part, a positive force.
The algorithm tries to link Facebook users with the material they want to view the most in a sea of social updates. It makes every effort to improve the Facebook user experience, encouraging individuals to spend more time on the site and interact with more material. Ideally, it is your content.
When your organic post doesn't perform as well as you expected, don't blame Facebook's algorithm; the algorithm did its job. Consider low organic results to be the algorithm's way of saying, "people don't want to engage with this sort of material." It's unpleasant, but this type of knowledge is priceless.
Learn everything you can about the all-knowing algorithm, including its basic values and ranking variables, so you can put it into practice and experience the results for yourself.
Let's get started.
What the Facebook algorithm considers important in the News Feed
Facebook depends on a set of basic ideals to drive their work with each algorithm change. These fundamental principles represent what Facebook users appreciate the most in their News Feeds, according to the company.
The three basic values that have the most influence on News Feed rankings are:
1. Priority is given to friends and relatives.
Facebook's algorithm prioritizes material from friends and family above everything else. That means you're more likely to read Aunt Linda's tirade about how millennials are destroying the napkin business before you see the trending napkin news. You are really fortunate.
Nothing has surpassed Facebook's objective of keeping friends and family connected since its inception in 2015.
2. Informational and entertaining content
Following friends and family, Facebook prioritizes material that informs or entertains. This includes current news headlines (hello, napkins), humorous videos, and celebrity stories that a certain user may be interested in.
If you are a brand, Facebook recommends that you provide material that your audience finds new, engaging, and informative. This improves the likelihood that the algorithm will place your content in front of your target audience.
3. Authentic, up-to-date content
Facebook discovered that users dislike real material such as spam, clickbait, and misleading or dramatic headlines. The Facebook algorithm has been taught to detect and demote this sort of incorrect, unauthentic information from a mile away.
On the algorithm front, Facebook recommends using clear headlines and avoiding propagating disinformation.
Factors influencing Facebook algorithm ranking in 2024
We've compiled all we know about Facebook's current News Feed ranking criteria and compiled it all here. It's far from a complete list, but it covers almost everything Facebook has revealed about the inner workings of its algorithm.
Prove you're deserving of a position in your followers' News Feeds by creating material that checks every algorithm-ranking box.
Organic post engagement levels
Before sharing your article with a large audience, Facebook's algorithm considers how many likes, responses, comments, and shares it receives initially.
The more positive engagement a post receives, the higher it is likely to rank in the algorithm. Any negative engagement, on the other hand, greatly decreases the chance of the Facebook algorithm increasing your reach.
Dennis Yu, a digital marketer and Facebook specialist, explains this notion using a point system, where points represent how the algorithm rates each interaction:
• 1 point = 1 like
• 1 comment = 6 points
• 1 share = 13 points
• 1 negative interaction (hide this post, unlike this page) = -100 points
As you can see, Facebook does not want to offer people stuff that they would dislike. To compensate for a single bad contact, you'll need to put in a lot of effort.
How to Survive It: Increase the amount of what works and decrease the amount of what doesn't. Create real, original material and avoid organic content that appears to be an advertisement. People dislike News Feed posts that appear to be advertisements.
Content that is meaningful and inspires discussion
Facebook's algorithm evaluates and forecasts the sorts of content that people are likely to engage with meaningfully. By "meaningful," Facebook refers to articles that users read, videos that they watch, and information that they share and discuss with their friends. Facebook is a fan if it gets people chatting in the comments area.
How to Survive It: Understand who you want to target, then develop trending content that is relevant and entertaining to that demographic. Make something shareable, such as a video.
The manner in which Facebook users connect with a brand
The frequency with which consumers interact with a brand's content provides a powerful signal to the algorithm's ranking brain. People who share your posts and comment on them on a regular basis are more likely to view all of your posts than those who provide the occasional pity like.
How to Survive It: Post frequently and regularly. Encourage as much engagement with your page as possible. Create a sense of community in your comments and connections with your most ardent internet fans.
User interactions are rated according to the type of post.
When a Facebook user engages with a lot of videos, the algorithm displays additional videos to them. If people can't help but click on links, Facebook is more likely to include links in their News Feed.
If you're not sure where to begin, keep the following in mind: Facebook users interact with video more frequently — and in more significant ways — than with any other form of post. So much so that Facebook publicly prioritizes video at the top of the feed.
Facebook Live has the highest engagement of any video post, and its use is rewarded handsomely by the algorithm.
However, it is not only live videos that do well on Facebook. When the Biteable Lab ran a test to examine how video advertisements compared to picture ads, video had a wider reach, more clicks, and a higher ROI.
Along with video, Facebook has suggested that more Facebook Group and Event material would appear in people's feeds in 2021 – two massive venues for community interaction.
How to Survive It: Make extensive use of video, form a community group, and make use of Facebook events.
How Facebook's video ranking algorithm works
Video is so important in Facebook's News Feed ranking algorithm that it has its own sub-category of ranking criteria.
Users, according to Facebook, want more high-quality, original video content.
• Loyalty and purpose are factors that Facebook considers when ranking these content.
If Facebook detects people searching for and watching your videos, it will give you more algorithm points. People that seek for your video rather than viewing it in their News Feed are algorithm gold.
• Video and watching time.
In contrast to video advertisements, the longer an organic Facebook video is, the better – as long as viewers are interested. Facebook's algorithm prefers films that are more than three minutes long and keep users' attention for at least one minute. The algorithm loves your video more as more people see it. If your visitors regularly watch your videos from beginning to end, you've got it made.
• Originality.
Repurposed or unoriginal video material is frowned upon by Facebook. They were so concerned that they changed the algorithm to minimize the dissemination of unoriginal content. To be on the safe side, use the Biteable video creator to easily produce original video content. We have over 1000 customisable templates to make creating unique videos a snap.
How to Survive It: Make unique, high-quality video material that is at least 3 minutes long.
The sequence of events
Facebook used to arrange News Feeds fully in reverse chronological order. That is no longer the case, although the time of a post does influence whether or not it gets seen. The algorithm is more likely to show something to your followers if it was uploaded lately.
It's ideal to post when your most engaged followers are online. The algorithm is looking to see how your audience reacts and engages with your material at this point.
How to Survive It: Post when your target audience is most likely to be online. Use your analytics to determine when they're on Facebook and arrange your material to appear when they're available to see it.
The Evolution of the Facebook Algorithm
The Facebook algorithm is constantly developing to fulfill the platform's and its users' demands. This is fantastic, but it also necessitates staying on top of changes as they occur.
Take a trip down memory lane to see how much and how rapidly Facebook's algorithm has evolved over time.
You won't be able to prevent future cruel algorithm adjustments, but you can rest easier knowing it's happened before, it'll happen again, and it'll only make you a better, more adaptive marketer.
• 2009
When Facebook chooses to stop sorting News Feeds chronologically, the algorithm as we know it is born. Instead, it ranks postings according to their popularity.
• 2011
The popularity contest has been replaced in some ways by a News Feed that prioritizes the most relevant information for each user. It's a mash-up of material with high interaction and postings from family and friends.
• In 2015;
Facebook gives users some power back by allowing them to pick which posts they "see first" at the top of their News Feeds.
• In 2016;
Facebook's algorithm began to prioritize live video. Because of increased interaction, video appears more frequently in people's News Feeds.
Facebook decides it wants to be a place where people can connect with their friends and family. The algorithm prioritizes postings from friends and relatives and gives them the top ranking place in the News Feed.
• In 2017;
Facebook experimented with prioritizing video content based on completion rate, valuing responses more than likes, de-ranking spam and click-bait, and giving web sites that load faster a higher rating. All of these modifications are permanent.
• In 2018;
Facebook tells its algorithm to favor meaningful social interactions as well as material from reputable local news sources.
Marketers are baffled by the definition of "meaningful social connections."
• In 2019;
Facebook will change its algorithm to favor the dissemination of high-quality, original video content.
Facebook is also working to improve transparency on the site, providing users (and marketers) with more information about how content is rated in their News Feed and why Facebook's algorithm selected to show it.
• 2021 and beyond
The algorithm we see today is a wiser, more developed version of all previous algorithms. And it will only become smarter in the future.
There's no knowing what Facebook has in store for future algorithm tweaks, but it's likely to continue in the same direction: quality, useful material that improves a user's News Feed experience. Happy Facebook users equals more eyes on your brand. All you have to do is prove to the algorithm that you are deserving of your position.