New Facebook news feed ranking factors and what you need to know.

You may have noticed that your Facebook page stats are not looking quite as spicy as they once were. This is because of the new Facebook news feed ranking factors impacting how posts are being shown to the user – best practice is evolving and giving the user what they want is a priority. Now is the time to ensure that you edge above the competition and get your content seen.

Here’s an overview of the new Facebook news feed ranking factors that will help you keep your posts ranked well;

Characteristics of a Facebook post.

Facebook is looking at the characteristics of your posts and determining if this post is what a user would interact with more – for example if your post is accompanied with a bold, bright and colourful image and the user has a history of interacting with this type of post then this type of post will rank higher than that of a post with no imagery – on the same note if your users prefer to interact with video and your post is accompanied with a video – this post will gain a higher ranking.

So whether your post has an image, a video, if your friends/a company are tagged in the post are all characteristics of a post and thus determines whether this post should be shown to a user and how high up the news feed it will be ranked. 

Engagement and Interest.

Facebook will use a number of signals to predict whether a user will likely engage or be interested in a post, one ranking factor will be that they look at past interactions with posts to predict if a user will interact in the future. 

Facebook says …the system determines which posts show up in your News Feed, and in what order, by predicting what you’re most likely to be interested in or engage with. These predictions are based on a variety of factors, including what and whom you’ve followed, liked, or engaged with recently.

To understand and predict such things Facebook uses machine learning models – identifying what content a user will ‘like’ and what content a user will ‘comment’ on. These forms of engagement will receive a ranking score and determine where your posts are ranked within the news feed.

Ranking Signals are Personalised to the User.

Each ranking factor is weighted differently from one user to the next – this means that one ranking signal could outweigh another based on relevance or importance and be shown above another post that may be deemed more relevant.

Facebook revealed that if a user is more likely to ‘like’ a post this could have a stronger influence on whether that post is ranked and for another user if the prediction is that they will ‘comment’ (based on historical data) the post is given a stronger ranking weight.

What this means is that for a post to be successful, it needs to inspire different forms of engagement from every user.

Contextual Features for Diversity 

Diversity is a big factor that will affect the ranking of a post in the news feed – Facebook wants to ensure the user’s feed doesn’t become repetitive so by including a diverse range of posts in the news feed there is a range of relevant content being shown – this also allows Facebook to gain further insight into a users behaviour and personalise their feed further.

Non-one, except, Facebook are privy to all the ranking factors but the above overview of the ranking process and what types of behaviour are prioritised should help us to keep appearing higher up in the news feed. These updates show us that posting on social media (for business) isn’t quite as simple as is often thought – time and consideration need to go into each post and every business needs to have a social media strategy in place.

If you are struggling with your social media and need a hand, please get in touch, we’d be happy to help ☺️