Facebook’s a funny creature. One minute it’s your best friend, sending your posts far and wide, and the next minute you feel like it’s conspiring against you, refusing to let anyone apart from your mum see the incredible post you’ve just penned!
We know, because we’ve been there (regularly!).
Believe it or not, this isn’t a totally random occurrence. Facebook doesn’t like you one day and dislike you the next, although it can totally feel like that. Instead, whether your posts perform or not is down to something called the Facebook algorithm.
The Facebook algorithm helps make sense of the huge number of posts that people and pages share every day, and chooses the posts to show in your news feed based on a huge number of factors.
In our experience, the Facebook algorithm seems to like posts:
- With lots of engagement (likes, comments and shares)
- That get this engagement quickly
- That are shared by real people on their personal Facebook pages
- With links
- With videos or photos
- That are timely or reference a trending topic
- From pages with complete profile information (fill in your ‘about’ page!)
On the other hand, the Facebook algorithm dislikes posts:
- That are clickbaity (you know, the posts that say: “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THIS MOTHER LEFT FOR WORK, etc”
- That ask for likes, shares or comments
- That include spammy links
- That are repetitive
- That are text only
- That are frequently hidden or reported by Facebook users
- With unusual engagement patterns
- With overly promotional content (Facebook seems to prick its ears up every time a post encourages people to buy, visit, donate, register or basically DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN BE ON FACEBOOK!)
With these pointers in mind, the best advice we can possibly give you is to create compelling, authentic and engaging Facebook posts that are naturally shareable. In other words, stories win, every time.
Go forth and be friends with Facebook!
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