Facebook Marketing: Whether you love or hate the Facebook algorithm, you must understand it to successfully market your business on the world’s largest social network.
Only 0.07% of organic Facebook Page posts receive engagement. You must learn to signal to the algorithm that your content is valuable, authentic, and worthy of being served in your followers’ feeds.
Facebook Marketing: A Brief about the Facebook Algorithm
The Facebook algorithm analyzes which posts people see every time they check their Facebook feed and in what order those posts show up.
Basically, the Facebook algorithm evaluates every post. It scores posts and then arranges them for each individual user in descending, non-chronological order of interest. This process occurs every time a user refreshes their feed—and there are 2.9 billion of them.
How the Facebook Algorithm Works in 2023
Firstly, News Feed is no more. What you see when you scroll through Facebook is now just called Feed.
Facebook says Feed shows you meaningful and informative stories. As of 2023, the Facebook algorithm can predict what those stories might be using three main ranking signals:
Who posted it: You’ll more likely see content from friends and businesses with whom you interact.
Type of content: If you often interact with video, you’ll see more videos. And if you engage with photos, you’ll see more photos.
Interactions with the post: Feed will prioritise posts with a high level of engagement, especially from people you interact with a lot.
Every post is ranked based on these main signals to determine where it shows up in your feed.
Facebook Marketing: 8 Tips on How to Work with the Facebook Algorithm
1. Facebook Marketing: Understand what your audience wants to see
Facebook prioritizes meaningful and informative content. So, what exactly does that mean?
Meaningful: Stories and videos the user will want to discuss with friends and family.
Informative: Content that is “new, interesting, and informative,” which will vary by user.
Understanding what will be informative and meaningful to your specific audience requires an understanding of their individual interests and behaviours. That means you’ll have to do some audience research.
2. Facebook Marketing: Create authentic and accurate content
According to Facebook, “people on Facebook value authentic, accurate content.” They also specify that posts people “consider genuine” will rank higher in Feed. In the meantime, they work to reduce the ranking for posts people find “spammy, misleading, and sensational.”
Here are two best tips for signalling the algorithm that your content is authentic and accurate:
Write clear headlines: Your headline should clearly describe what users will find in our post. You can be creative, but avoid using clickbait or misleading titles.
Be truthful: Simply put, tell the truth. Don’t exaggerate, sensationalise, or lie. Engagement bait will not win you the algorithm’s favour.
3. Facebook Marketing: Don’t try to manipulate the algorithm
But wait, isn’t this post about manipulating the algorithm? No, this post aims to help you understand how the algorithm works, so you know what Facebook considers valuable for its users.
You have to put in the effort to figure out how those principles apply to your specific audience. After that, create content that will connect with them and send positive ranking signals to the algorithm.
Manipulating the algorithm to get more distribution is a big no-no. This could include paying for engagement or comments or engaging in other black-hat strategies. Facebook considers this spam. Don’t do it.
4. Facebook Marketing: Engage with your audience
The algorithm prioritizes posts from Pages with which a user has previously interacted. This means that improving your response game is critical.
If a user takes the time to comment on your post, don’t waste the opportunity. Making them feel heard with a reply increases your chances of more engagement on your posts in future. Of course, this sends more juicy engagement signals to the algorithm. Ignore them, and they’ll go silent in return.
5. Facebook Marketing: Engage your audience with each other.
Remember how we mentioned that the algorithm values content people want to share and discuss with friends? A very easy way to send that signal is to get people to share and discuss your content with their friends.
According to Facebook, if a post sparks a lot of discussion among a user’s friends, the algorithm uses “action-bumping logic” to show that post to the user again.
6. Facebook Marketing: Make the most of Facebook Stories and Reels
Reels and Stories exist in a separate world from the main News Feed algorithm. Both appear in tabs at the top of the Feed, above all the other content, offering you a Facebook algorithm bypass strategy.
So, if you’re looking for new eyeballs, Reels are an important part of your strategy. Facebook is focused on making Reels the best way for creators to get discovered. If brands create high-quality content, Reels can help them make new connections.
Besides the tab at the top of Feed, Reels can be shared to Stories and seen within the Watch tab. Facebook also suggests reels from people the user doesn’t already follow within Feed.
7. Facebook Marketing: Don’t forget the basic status post.
Didn’t we just say that video content is the most important thing? Well, not exactly. When trying to increase engagement, looking for complicated Facebook algorithm hacks can be tempting, but don’t overlook the humble status post. (A post with no image, video, or link.)
According to a research by Hootsuite, status posts, on average, get the highest engagement: 0.13%. Following that are photo posts (0.11%), videos (0.08%), and link posts (0.03%).
8. Facebook Marketing: Expand your reach via your best advocates.
Your employees have more authority and credibility with the Facebook algorithm compared to your brand page. It’s because they have more authority and credibility among their own friends and followers.
Affiliates are another great group of advocates who can help build your brand’s credibility and expand your reach. You can provide them with resources and training to help them increase awareness on Facebook and extend your audience through their own algorithm signals.
