How does the Facebook feed work?

What the news is trying to achieve

In short, Facebook's goal is to choose the ten most relevant and engaging stories from the thousands that appear every day, and show them in your tape first. These stories are ranked in descending order - starting with the most important, for example, the wedding of your sibling. Then comes a dozen posts shared by your close friends, then posts from the brands you are subscribed to, and at the very end - boring events and events of distant acquaintances and even strangers.

Priority is given to the stories that you most likely like, comment or share, to which you click and read - that is, in which you are "involved". Facebook also has online surveys and focus groups offline, which give them more insights about what people want to see in their tapes.

It's not surprising that Facebook spends so much time and effort: the more users are involved in content, the more time they spend on the site, the more advertising they can show, the more money they will make.

Natural selection

The more people and companies have pages on Facebook, the more competition for limited space in the news feed. Views are not growing as fast as the amount of content.

This leads to a natural decrease in the involvement in content, so the percentage of page subscribers who saw the post from all who could potentially see it, at times decreases. The reason is not that Facebook wants to pump out more paid placements from the business - just need to skillfully compete for a place in the sun in the Facebook tape.

How to influence what you see

So how does the Facebook algorithm determine what will appear in the tape and in what order? It assigns to each story a personal assessment of the relevance that is different for each user who sees it. The most relevant stories are shown first. When assessing the relevance of the algorithm takes into account thousands of different signals. But there are four main factors that decide when to show the story to a particular user.

Who posted this

The more you interacted with the author of the story in the recent past, the more interesting is his news for you, says Facebook. Interaction is understood not only by likes, comments, messages, but also if you slowed down scrolling by seeing his post, went to his page, tagged him in his posts or he tagged you, etc. That's why you do not see posts from old friends who have not interacted with for several years.

How other people reacted to the post

The more reaction the post received from other users, the sooner Facebook will show it to you. Sometimes people and brands publish boring stories, to which a couple of people pay attention - such posts immediately go into oblivion. But if a large percentage of people who saw the post in the first place, have licked, commented on or somehow reacted to it, Facebook will conclude that this is something interesting, and will show it to more people.

What type of post is this

If you react more often to a particular type of publication (photo, video, status, link, event, job change), Facebook will show you publications of this type more often. Different people like different types of posts. I like to read the articles more, to you - to watch the video. But if you never watch a video - Facebook will not show them to you.

When it was published

The more recent the story, the sooner you will see it. And Facebook checks when you last viewed the tape. If you check it every hour, Facebook will show the newest posts. If you did not go for a week, you will see all the most important events, for example, the publication about the birth of a child from your best friend, even if she is already five days old.

All these factors together have a strong influence on the formation of the news line and the sequence in which publications appear. Also, Facebook is studying how you interact with the tape, and eventually notices that you are interested and lures, how your behavior changes and why.

But there are several other factors that affect the tape, although not as much as the above.

How many other people published the same thing

If a dozen of your friends have posted a link to the same article or video, Facebook believes that this is very cool content and reports that "Vasilisa Vasilyeva and 11 other friends shared this ..." higher in your tape.

News that Facebook creates

When Facebook releases a new product, for example, Live video or Slideshows, he needs to test it. The algorithm can initially show too many or too few posts about a new product, until it receives a feedback to determine the appropriate level of visibility.

How advertising is inserted

Facebook also inserts ads into the news feed. It does not displace any organic publications from it, but simply squeezes between them, dropping all subsequent posts one slot.

To determine which ads are most relevant to you, Facebook uses a very similar algorithm. In this case, the social network limits the amount of advertising that you can see, thus trying to maximize the response to the advertising that you will still be shown. After all, if you click on it - sotsset will earn money.

The more Facebook knows about you, the more useful advertising you will be shown. If you fill out your profile as much as possible and will like and comment on the content of brands that you like, Facebook advertising will become more personalized and more relevant, and will inform you about the products, services, events and applications that interest you.

How to control your news feed

Facebook provides explicit and implicit options to tell the newsline what you want to see in it.

Implicit signals are your behavior in the tape. If you are lazing the stories of specific people, you will see more of their publications. If you ignore someone else's posts, you will see fewer stories from these people and pages. Therefore, it is important to react specifically to the content that you like, and not put it, to someone to cajole, or pass by, if you do not like the person who stole it.

More Facebook offers explicit tools for updating the newsline. In each post there is a drop-down menu that allows you to:

• Hide the post from the stream and no longer show this content;
• Razfolovit author and no longer show his posts;
• Postpone the story for later and show more similar content;
• Disable notifications and no longer receive them from this author.

There is also an option "Show first". It allows you to select people whose publications you want to see always and at once. This function can be useful if you want to be aware of the events of your best friends, boss or mom.

List of changes in the algorithm of the news line

Facebook is constantly changing the algorithm for issuing posts in the news line. Adapts it so that people can not hack the principle and cheat. Learns to reach new content providers and adjust the flow of information. And so that users do not suspect the company that it has something to itself nahimichila, there is a blog in which Facebook informs about all the changes.

The most recent algorithm changes are:

The most recent algorithm changes are:

High-quality publication pages - timely, relevant, which you will share and recommend, interesting, not memes that you will not complain about, you will not hide, from a source you trust, with a completed profile and a large subscriber base.

More relevant ads - less advertising that other people hide.

High-quality news - more links to quality articles, fewer links to memes and photographs, articles on a similar topic with those that you previously read.

More statuses from friends - more text status of your friends, less - from the pages.

More stories on topics of interest to you - the post of the page in which another page was planned, may appear in the subscribers' tape of the page that has been crawled.

Clear from spam - fewer posts from pages that persistently ask people to keep their eyes, comment and sherch their content. Fewer posts that the page has previously shared, fewer spam links with tricks in wording or formatting designed to lure more users.

Focus on the stories that they willingly share - more stories from third-party applications with organic coverage and fewer artificially and automatically distributed stories.

Showing the best videos - more videos that people watch and watch longer, more videos for those who like to watch videos, and less for those who ignore it in the stream.

Fighting with clickbay - fewer links that do not explain the essence of what's inside, fewer links to sites where people spend little time, more links to sites where people spend a lot of time, more links to sites that are discussed after they've visited, More posts with links in the header format and less - with links in the description or inscribed on a photo or video (so often spread viruses - ed.).

Fidbeck on advertising - Facebook explores how and why users hide ads, making more emphasis on those who do not often hide advertising.

More timely stories - more stories that reflect the latest trends.

More control over what you see - when you hide someone's story, you can choose further actions in relation to the content from this person.

Less promotion - fewer posts that persuade people to buy something, install, go somewhere, or who copy someone's advertising content, previously published.

Minimizing fraud - fewer posts that users mark as fake or delete, because they contain lies and falsifications.

More content from friends - more publications of friends instead of posts of pages, more posts for new users, in the tape of which there is little content.

More stories you spend more time with - which people look at longer when they are flipping the tape.

Priority function - allows you to select the friends whose publications you want to see first.

Focus on how people hide posts - if a person often hides posts in his tape, even those who larked and commented, the algorithm rarely takes this into account when forming a tape.

Taking action with videos - more videos that people scan with sound, unfold on the whole screen in high resolution.

Optimizing the tape for a weak connection - less video and more status, if you have a slow Internet connection.

Inclusion of the reaction - more stories similar to the ones you reacted to.

Research that will help to avoid low-quality stories - fewer viral stories, which, according to research, people do not like.

Offline Ribbon - when someone did not have the Internet, Facebook will re-evaluate the previously downloaded stories and show them instead of the connection-off icon.

Quality feedback - more stories with surveys and qualitative research, which people will sooner appreciate and revere.

The coincidence of reactions and stories - over time Facebook hopes to show people more stories that correspond to their reactions, that is, if people often react to something with a smile "haha", then they will see more funny stories.

Live video at the time of the broadcast - they fall into the ribbon as soon as the author starts streaming.

Time spent on websites - More links to articles that people read longer on third-party sites.

Priority to friends and family before the pages - more stories from dear to you people, less - from brands.

Clickbay with fakes or links to an unrelated source - dishonest posts and deceptive maneuvers will appear less often in your tape.

Promotion of more informative stories - more benefit in the tape.

Newsfeed strategy

When you are going to publish something, ask yourself: how interesting or funny is it for other people? Maybe you are just showing off your successes or aggressively advertising your business?

Based on all of the above, the best thing you can do to appear more often in the tape of your subscribers is to publish interesting, relevant, unique stories that resonate with your audience. This is content that looks beautiful, funny or emotional, important news or something that can surprise / delight a large number of people. Avoid self-promotion and spam, dry content or bayans, boring stories that are of little interest to anyone.

The algorithm of the Facebook news feed is complex, but the people he serves are pretty simple. We all want to please us. Encourage others, and Facebook will share your story with the world.