What is the Facebook algorithm?

How it works

Facebook manipulates what content users get to see deciding upon many factors. Many news updates are instantly available on Facebook amongst which some are real facts and others fake or untrue. This news may be politics related or any other issues which may be responsible to agitate people, boosting their emotions as well. So Facebook decided to deal with such stuff in a well-organized way or algorithm.

Thus, the Facebook algorithm is all set to develop a platform for realistic, social interaction amongst its members. Facebook also serves a good business purpose for those who want to sell their products through posts. But it has been found that Facebook favors native posts from users who are involved with them leading to a huge traffic drop for those who sell their products through the site. As a result, businesses failed to produce new leads through Facebook. So to minimize such problems Facebook has set up an algorithm to work accordingly.

To understand the Facebook algorithm we need to know what is a news feed?

It is a characteristic of the social network Facebook and is a way how contents posted on Facebook will appear on the network. It gives notifications of profile changes, upcoming events, birthdays, etc. The Facebook algorithm uses a methodical way as to how these updates will appear to users every time they visit their feed which is based on four deciding factors discussed below:

Facebook Inventory:

It is the way how Facebook refers to all the contents on it for e.g. – posts from friends, family, joined groups, or liked pages by the user.

Facebook Signals:

This is how Facebook chooses which content could be shared with others. But as contents get updated from time to time, the important contents can change any minute.

Facebook decides the contents as important depending upon the following factors:

1.    Type of content

2.    When was it posted?

3.    By who was the content posted

4.    The technology i.e. the kind of phone and internet connection used

5.    Time spend by others on the contents

6.    Comments, reactions on a post by others

7.    Replies to the comments on audio, video

8.    Shares on messenger

9.    One's engagement with contents posted by different groups

10.   Information a post delivers

11.   Time elapsed since the content was posted

12.   How much complete one's profile is?

Facebook algorithm definitely gives more important to person to person conversations rather than reactions of persons to a page.

Facebook Predictions:

Here Facebook recollects old posts, contents according to the fact that how likely users would interact according to their preferences withholding those which they think are not likely the user will engage with.

Facebook Score:

It is the weightage gained by contents according to the user's interaction with it. Quite evident that different content is of different value to separate individuals. As the score gets higher, it is more likely that the particular content will appear on top of the news feed.

How do the above-mentioned factors work?

Facebook utilizes all the data above to place contents in one's news feed according to one's interaction with different posts based on score. All contents may not be of similar importance to all users. Thus a person's habits, interest, and their interactions are the deciding factors or data used by the Facebook algorithm to orderly place contents in their feed.