Facebook just updated their news feed algorithm, this time keeping publisher’s content in mind. They understand the importance of wanting more people to see posts while keeping what the user finds relevant in mind. Facebook announced two new updates to their algorithm that will create a more engaging news feed.
The first change is story bumping. This enables stories that you have not seen or read yet to be bumped up closer to the top next time you check your Facebook. The second feature is last actor. This will look at the last 50 engagements a user has and give priority to people and pages the user has recently interacted with. Facebook’s main goal through these two new features is to give the user more control over their news feed.
Facebook tested out a Chronological by Actor feature to make real time updates more comprehensible. They started getting closer to Twitter’s feature of real-time updating, however Facebook said they are not budging from their commitment to ranking. Chronological Actor was only tested and not a part of these new features because it led to less engagement. Their goal is to show the most relevant content to a user when they are online so they do not miss stories that they find important. This is the core in all updates to their algorithm that they roll out because they have the users in mind.
What This Means For Business
Optimize post times around your audience. You always want to increase your odds of people seeing your posts. Know your audience and when they are online and post around those times. The beauty of this new Story Bumping feature is that if someone missed a previous post because it was “below the fold” it will be bumped up closer to the top of the page the next time they are checking their news feed. This drastically increases the chances of your post being seen, but you should still optimize your posts based on when users are on the most.
Increase engagement so you keep appearing in their news feed. Through the Last Actor feature, Facebook is assigning a score based on your engagement levels with a user. The more a user interacts with a Page, the higher their score and more likely new posts will be in a user’s news feed. If you keep engaging with people as much as you can, you will be shown higher in their news feed. Recency and consistency play huge roles in this feature.
Find creative ways to get people to like, comment, and share your content. This will further increase the chances of posts spreading throughout Facebook and several user’s news feeds. Of course that worked the same before these new features, but with Story Bumping and Last Actor it will further increase your chances of posts being seen.