Brand comunication

How does the Facebook algorithm work?)

By Guillermo Lamphar

March 17, 2017

Although you may not notice it, and may even think it’s a myth, but Facebook is always, every minute, recording your interactions with pages and applications; always. Facebook records all of your comments, likes, shared posts, follows, video views, and all possible actions within your account – but for what? To understand you; or rather understand what you like and what you don’t so that their famous algorithm EdgeRank can do its thing.

Facebook literally has thousands of things to show you, like photos, videos, posts by family and friends, and advertisements. All this in one place. How do they decide what to show you during your activity? The algorithm of the company analyzes your actions and creates patterns of behavior to be able to decide what content you are most likely to like and interact with so that you spend more time using the platform. Over time, Facebook gets to know you better than anyone else.

How can you control what appears in your news feed?

You can’t really because it would be very, very complicated to filter 100% of the content that Facebook prepares with love for you. What you can do is guide the Facebook algorithm to better understand what content you like. To do so you can control your interactions, that is, if you see a video or post in your news feed that you do not like, do not interact with that content. If it is a publication that you really do not want to see any more, there are methods to delete publications, which of course Facebook also registers, and are the most direct way to tell Facebook that certain content is not of interest to you. Any comment, sharing or reaction will make the algorithm think that this publication is of interest to you because you took the time to perform a concrete action within it.

How does this affect your business or brand?

Very simple. The most valuable metric on Facebook is your interaction in terms of shares, comments, reactions, and likes, in that order. Except for specific advertising goals, all communication on Facebook should seek interaction with the content of the company to increase organic reach. That simple, but at the same time complex.

So, answering the initial question, so many puppies and kittens have only one explanation…

Facebook knows what you like the most.

Guillermo Lamphar is a digital strategist at Mijo! Brands, a leading creative agency in CDMX and Puerto Vallarta. Visit us at www.mijobrands.com or contact us.