Facebook - Another Algorithm Change!
Facebook is changing its algorithm yet again, and this time it wants to show you more things that you’ll actually spend time reading or watching. Like Google, its only concern is User experience and this is always the driving force to changes in its platform.
Whilst Facebook looks at a plethora of data when deciding which posts you actually see on your News Feed, until now it hasn’t cared too much about what you actually do when you click away from Facebook. This is all about to change.
“We’re learning that the time people choose to spend reading or watching content they clicked on from News Feed is an important signal that the story was interesting to them,” commented Software Engineer Moshe Blank and Research Scientist Jie Xu, in a post on the Company’s website.
As a consequence, the site is now optimised to pick links which have a higher viewing time. “We will also be looking at the time spent within a threshold,” the pair said, “so as not to accidentally treat longer articles preferentially.”
Facebook algorithm influenced by outside data
It seems that part of the reason for the algorithm change is that only recently has Facebook had enough data on User behaviour off-site to create the right metrics. The site still can’t tell what happens to Desktop Users who click a link that takes them outside Facebook, but the steadily increasing proportion of Users who are on the Company’s mobile apps, as well as the introduction of Instant Articles, means that Facebook can now hoover up data about a critical mass of its Users.
It is this that also enables Facebook to be smart in terms of how it measures reading time. For instance, the new algorithm won’t count loading time towards average time reading, only actual time spent reading and watching content.
Keeping more people on Facebook, not off it.
These recent changes in the algorithm are the latest example of Facebook tweaking the News Feed in ways that it hopes will encourage Users to spend more time on the site. Last summer, it put a similar change in place, promoting those posts which were read for more time even if no links were clicked. And in 2014, it changed the algorithm to penalise 'clickbait' – links which Users opened then immediately closed.
“We learned that this often happened when the article someone clicked on wasn’t what they had expected from the post or the headline,” Blank and Xu wrote.
A further change to the algorithm will also be rolling out alongside the reading time tweak, as Facebook begins to force more diversity into the News Feed. The company will roll out “an update to reduce how often people see several posts in a row from the same source in their News Feed”.
Staying abreast of Facebook algorithm changes
As User traffic is obviously of critical importance to any business choosing to market through Facebook, any tweaks in the algorithm are undoubtedly worth remaining abreast of by following Facebook's newsroom and reputable social media new sites. With these changes having a direct effect on what gets seen by Users, it is the businesses who are most savvy in navigating the algorithm that stand to achieve the greatest results in terms of successfully reaching Users with their Facebook posts.
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