Facebook Tweaks News Feeds

Keeping publishers on their toes, Facebook is once again fiddling with its News Feed algorithm.

When generating individual News Feeds, the social giant will now consider user feedback, and especially indications that users like -- and like engaging with -- particular content.

 “News Feed will begin to look at both the probability that [users] would want to see the story at the top of [their] feed and the probability that [they] will like, comment on, click or share a story,” Cheng Zhang and Si Chen, software engineers at Facebook, explained in a co-authored blog post.

“We will rank stories higher in feeds which we think people might take action on, and which people might want to see near the top of their News Feed,” they note.

How might this change impact publishers?

That will depend on the composition of publishers’ unique audiences and posting activity, according to Zhang and Chen.

“In general, this update should not impact reach or referral traffic meaningfully for the majority of Pages,” they note. “However, some Pages may see some increases in referral traffic, and some Pages may see some declines in referral traffic.”

Pages that might see declines in referral traffic are most likely ones that are posting more frequently than people report wanting to see such stories near the top of their News Feed.

For its data, Facebook relies on its Feed Quality Panel -- which consists of thousands of user content rankings -- while also surveying tens of thousands of users to learn more about how well its ranking each person’s New Feed.

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