It was announced by Facebook that there would be a new blog series titled News Feed FYI that would completely revamp the existing News feed and hopefully provide much needed answers, at a press event today.
This is implicitly a response by Facebook to users and marketers who have routinely grunted about lack of visibility in news feed and understanding as to how the algorithm works and how the network chooses the content relevancy to the user. Previously there have been attempts to explain EdgeRank and give detailed suggestion on how to increase the page’s content visibility in News Feed.
It is really difficult to get noticed when only 16% of your fans will see your posts. Hence the new blog will be aiming at dismiss the concerns over the mystery EdgeRank. It is better if we hear it from Facebook directly as to what changes that would occur.
Story Bumping is claimed to be the major update in the news feed as told in today’s press event. In past Facebooks algorithm with respect to news feed used to show newer content which deemed relevant to the user at the top based on as to how recently it was posted.It served to be ‘new to you’ content that may be published prior to your last login which you have not seen.
It seems to be promising as there is potential for a brand’s content to have a higher likelihood of being viewed and interacted with by a user. It can increase the life of a facebook post which is at present 2 hours. The life of a post is termed as the window of time between when it is published and when it is likely to reach maximum engagement. Facebook has also seen 8% boost in the interactions from user based on the initial tests of this algorithmic tweak.
‘Last Actor’ and ‘Chronological by Actor’ will be serving different purpose in the algorithmic process as announced by Facebook’s Lars Backstrom. TechCrunch has revealed that the algorithm looks at the last 50 people with whom a user has interacted by viewing a profile, photos, or stories in the news feed. Facebook would be serving content from those 50 more frequently for a short period of time in the News Feed.Updates like these will prove to be less tedious and will be immediately implemented reported TechCrunch.
From today’s press event the key takeaway was that marketers will have to deliver content that is more relevant and engaging than before. Bloggers will have to fight for News Feed real estate and need to ensure that they give their fans content that will encourage and resonate interaction, all while still delivering the brand message.News Feed FYI will help users to better understand the science of moving forward.