Yes that’s right – the algorithm has changed again. But
unlike the
changes made in September 2012 this round of changes has flown under the
radar – perhaps overshadowed by the way more exciting (and easy to understand)
announcement that pages can now run
competitions without requiring a third party app.
That’s not to say that there isn’t still a place for the
good ol’ app – which this infographic from allfacebook
outlines really clearly. And of course there is still the minor issue of the
law and the need to provide terms, conditions and privacy statements.
But I digress. The algorithm
changes have flown under the radar because they are largely beneficial for
most brand pages.
Previously Edgerank was
based on three factors – affinity, weight and time decay – that determined whether
any one status update would be seen by any one person. That’s now changed and there
are reportedly a myriad of factors that are now taken into consideration. Two
of the main ones being talked about are Last Actor and Story Bumping.
Last
Actor looks at the last 50 interactions you’ve had on Facebook, then gives
new posts from those people or brand pages priority on your newsfeed. Pages who
post frequently will be rewarded – and those that are targeting the most active
demographics need to post more frequently to stay visible.
But it’s not just about quantity. Facebook will also assess
the quality of your post and demote content that is ‘engagement baiting’ just
to get likes. Brands will need to come up with something better than ‘like this
if you like fluffy kittens’ and the world will be a better place for it. Facebook
haven’t quite said how
they will do this, but brands that thrive on this type of content can
expect to see engagement rates drop away.
The second factor – Story
Bumping – works like this. If a page you regularly interact with posts some
content and it’s getting good interaction, but you’ve found something more
interesting to do than log onto Facebook every couple of hours causing that
post to slip down your newsfeed – then don’t despair! Facebook will bump that
post back up your newsfeed, givi
ng you a second chance to see content that it
thinks you want to engage with. This is good news for brands – particularly those
that still insist on posting status updates during business hours when only half
of their fanbase is actually online.
There are many other factors that matter now. Anyone noticed
Facebook prompting you to update sections on your info page? Yep, that’s taken
into account too.
So how will these changes impact on brand page performance?
We’ll probably never know because Facebook coincidentally rolled out their new
insights platform just before the algorithm change. Virality no longer
exists and has instead been replaced with the more all-encompassing ‘Engagement
Rate’.
“What’s the difference?” I hear you ask. Quite a lot.
Virality took only the highest quality interactions – those that
resulted in a story being created which shared your content with their friends –
as being worth counting. All other interactions – usually called ‘other clicks’
in the exportable report – weren’t deemed valuable enough to include. Hence the
rise of all those ‘like this if’ posts – unless people engaged in a certain
way, they weren’t counted.
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| Image courtesy of Inside Facebook |
The new Engagement Rate – defined as “the percentage of
people who liked, comments, shared or
clicked on your post after having seen it” is broader, but more worthwhile.
If someone clicks on a link through to your competition app (oh, except we don’t
need them anymore) or another piece of content you wanted to share – that wouldn’t
have been included in virality, but is included in the engagement rate. Someone
clicking on an image you have shared because they want to see it in more detail
is counted as engagement, but wouldn’t have been included in the old virality
metric.
The sound of page admins around the world patting themselves
on the backs for a job well done last month was deafening (I wonder how many
truthfully explained the reasons for the better results in their reports). But
with all the changes Facebook are rolling out, they’ll still need to work hard
to make sure Facebook continues to deliver results for their clients.
