Facebook Algorithm

Facebook’s Algorithm is the formula used to determine which stories are displayed on the News Feed and the order in which they appear. Every day, there are upwards of 1,500 possible stories that can be displayed on a typical user’s News Feed. Facebook has consistently tweaked and restructured its algorithm over the years to offer a smarter feed of relevant content to users.

Facebook’s Algorithm has evolved substantially since the simple chronological organization it had in 2004. In October of 2009, Facebook made its first major change when it introduced the “Top News” feed, which used feedback such as comments and likes to prioritize posts in users’ News Feeds. Users could still sort their own feed chronologically with a “Most Recent” tab, but the two algorithms were kept separate. In 2011 these two feeds were merged into an algorithm called EdgeRank, which used a combination of user affinity, content weight, and time decay to determine the News Feed’s order. Finally, in 2013 and into 2014, Facebook made several changes to its algorithm once again to further prioritize quality content over spam. The latest algorithm change, which Facebook announced on their blog on April 10, 2014, de-emphasizes Pages engaging in “feed spam behavior,” including like-baiting, repeated content, and spammy links.

WHY DOES TRACKMAVEN THINK FACEBOOK’S ALGORITHM IS IMPORTANT?

Understanding Facebook’s Algorithm is incredibly important for brands that rely on Pages for free organic reach. Each Facebook algorithm change comes with a learning curve for marketers, who must often adjust their content strategies on the network to maximize their posts’ distribution. This means that if brands fully understand the algorithm and create posts that considers to be “quality,” they can maintain a significantly higher than average organic reach on Facebook.