Lars Backstrom, Engineering Manager for News Feed Ranking at Facebook, estimated that there are as many as “100,000 individual weights in the model that produces News Feed.” The three original EdgeRank elements — Affinity, Weight and Time Decay — are still factors in News Feed ranking, but “other things are equally important,” Backstrom says. He compares the new model to how search engines rank web pages, which are now more sophisticated than the 2006 version.
“EdgeRank, Facebook’s original News Feed ranking system, is dead,” says Matt McGee, Editor-In-Chief of Marketing Land. He goes on to note that Facebook hasn’t used the world internally for three years now. In 2006, Facebook’s News Feed consisted of algorithms that were basically turning knobs, based on user preferences and personal circles.
Sometimes, though, global interactions can outweigh personal interactions. Backstrom explains, “For example, if we show an update to 100 users, but only a couple of them interact with it, we may not show it in your News Feed. But if a lot of people are interacting with it, we might decide to show it to you, too.”
In the current stages, affinity, which is described as how close the relationship between the user and the content or source is, the weight, or what type of action was taken on the content, and decay, how recent or current the content is, are still important, but there are many weight levels and facets.
10 Factors of Facebook Algorithms
- Affinity
- Weight
- Time Decay
- Relationships
- Post Types
- Hide Post
- Spam Reporting
- Advertisement Clicks
- Technical Considerations
- Story Bumping
With these algorithm factors in place, statistics show that only 16% of your fans will see your posts on average.
According to PostRocket, there are things you can do to improve the rank on your news feed.
6 Ways To Improve Your Rank
- Keep it short. Posts between 100 and 250 characters get 60% more likes, comments and shares.
- Be visual. Posting photo albums, photos, and videos get 180%, 120%, and 100% more engagement respectively.
- Ask for what you want. Asking simple opinion-driven questions will being in 90% more engagement than the average post.
- Post daily. Post consistently, because 96% of your fans won’t come back to your page without consistently reaching them.
- Be relevant, but not pushy. Posts related to, but not directly about your brand perform best.
- Be timely. Test out the best times to reach your audience and stick to it.
