Facebook Algorithm Updated – No more begging for likes or crappy memes

Facebook Algorithm updated to reduce Like begging and crappy memes

Facebook announced last week (23rd August) that they are making changes to the News Feed Algorithm (EdgeRank) which should reduce the number of “Click Like if you love cats” or crappy memes you see in your News Feed.

Facebook’s aim is to make sure that the best quality content is being produced, surfaced and shared. Their latest update to the News Feed ranking algorithm helps ensure that the organic content people see from Pages they are connected to is the most interesting to them.

So how did they go about changing the Facebook Algorithm?

“While the goal of News Feed is to show high quality posts to people, we wanted to better understand what high quality means. To do this we decided to develop a new algorithm to factor into News Feed.

To develop it, we first surveyed thousands of people to understand what factors make posts from Pages high quality.

Some of the questions we asked included:”

• Is this timely and relevant content?
• Is this content from a source you would trust?
• Would you share it with friends or recommend it to others?
• Is the content genuinely interesting to you or is it trying to game News Feed distribution? (e.g., asking for people to like the content)
• Would you call this a low quality post or meme?
• Would you complain about seeing this content in your News Feed?

• By showing these high quality posts higher up in News Feed, we saw a significant increase in interactions (likes, comments, shares) with this content
• People in the test group also hid fewer stories overall

These results suggest that this change shows more people higher quality content, and more interesting stories from the Pages they are connected to and Facebook will be rolling out this update to everyone over the next few weeks.

Will this affect my Facebook page?

If your Facebook posts consist mainly of begging for likes or memes then yes, the changes to the Facebook Algorithm will affect you. You will probably see a reduction in your reach, but if you continue to provide good quality content that people want to read and engage with then no, it will be business as usual.