Those of us who own company pages on Facebook know how painful it is to spend hours curating and writing great content, doing everything in our power – from copy to graphics to choosing the best possible posting time, and then a few hours later noticing how the oh-so-awesome content we created was only viewed by a handful of people on Facebook. It’s excruciating really and because of the time decay factor in Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm we know that the reach of the post won’t increase by much after a few hours.
Well… the good news is, that is probably not going to happen any more. Thanks to Facebook who introduced a couple of small but great changes in its News Feed algorithm on August 6 2013. I know what you are thinking, Facebook is always tweaking its News Feed algorithm but this time it is different. I believe that the two new changes that Facebook has introduced will not only enhance the user experience but they will also help out businesses and marketers.
So what are the 2 new changes you ask?
1. Story Bumping: Remember how time decay only allowed the most recent posts to show up on News Feed? That is not going to happen any more. With story bumping, stories that users did not see because of them being “below the fold” on users’ News Feed will be eligible to be bumped up the next time user checks Facebook. This is of course great news for marketers as this gives us a second chance to have our content shown on our fans’ News Feed.
When this change was tested with a small number of users, the data showed a 5% increase in number of likes, shares, and comments on posts from friends and an 8% increase on posts from pages. The data also showed that previously users only viewed 57% of stories that appeared on their News Feed, story bumping has taking that up to 70%.
2. Last Actor: The second change Facebook announced last Tuesday is known as last actor. Last actor is quite simple but brilliant. After the introduction of this little change in the News Feed algorithm, Facebook takes into account the last 50 interactions that a user has done, for example liking certain types of posts, commenting on a friend’s photos, etc. and gives more weight to the people and pages the user has recently interacted and engaged with.
This may be a good as well as a bad thing for marketers as now we have to make sure that we are posting awesome enough content to be a part of the last 50 interactions of our fans in order to show up in their News Feed.
Tricky tricky, huh? But worry not, we will be sharing some great tips with you guys in the coming weeks to help you create awesome content and attract more qualified users to your fan page! Stay tuned and don’t forget to tell us what you think about these new changes in Facebook’s News Feed algorithm.
Happy marketing!