Facebook Adds New Page and Group Ranking Factors into News Feed Algorithm

After announcing a News Feed algorithm update earlier this month, which focused on boosting content from the people you care most about, and reducing the reach of clickbait, Facebook has now issued an amendment to that update to also add in new ranking signals for content from the Pages and Groups that people are most interested in. Facebook to ask them to list the friends they are closest to. We look at the patterns that emerge from these results, some of which include being tagged in the same photos, continuously reacting and commenting on the same posts and checking-in at the same places. We then use these patterns to inform our algorithm. In the new amendment, Facebook says that it recently issued two additional surveys focused on Page and Group content, and what people want to see more, or less, of:"We know that friends are not the only reason people come to Facebook. Many people come to see the latest from the Pages they follow and the groups they are a part of. In addition to surveying people asking them which friends they were closest to, we started two additional surveys asking people 1) how interested they are in content from a specific Page they follow, and 2) how important a specific group they’ve joined is to them."Based on the responses it's received, Facebook says that it has updated the News Feed algorithm to "prioritize the Pages and groups we predict an individual may care about most"."Some of the indicators of how meaningful a Page or group is might include how long someone has followed a Page or been a part of a group; how often someone engages with a Page or group; and how often a Page or group posts."What, exactly, that means - and how Page managers can use it to advantage - is unclear. There's obviously little that Page managers can do now about the time that people have been following their Page, and engagement has always been a factor in boosting Page reach. But that last point raises a question about whether it's better to post more or less.