Facebook Algorithms Explained: How to Post Better, Get More Engagement & Improve Your Reach

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTAlgorithms are rules that social media platforms use to determine who sees your posts.Facebook serves up content to you based on other posts you “like”, share, comment on, etc.These days, only 1-2% of your Facebook Page’s followers will see your posts.Engagement is key to “beating” Facebook’s algorithms!Facebook wants to see conversations! Think about how you can get people to comment on your posts.For Facebook, you only need to post once a day—at most! Two or three posts a week is a great amount.The one thing that breaks through the algorithm every time—live video!If you go live, you will get better reach and more engagement.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…As users of social media, we are bombarded with content. Every day, hundreds of thousands of posts are vying for our attention. Facebook uses its algorithms to determine how to show you the content that you enjoy the most; it culls through all the noise to deliver what it thinks you would want to see. Take smart steps to build conversation and community to feed into Facebook’s latest algorithm updates.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat does “algorithm” mean, anyway? – 01:28What Facebook does with the information it gets through its algorithms – 05:12Facebook algorithms and advertising – 06:04Why you need to care about Facebook’s algorithms – 06:20How the algorithm can affect your posts – 08:20Facebook’s focus on conversation – 11:28Less is more! – 12:35Steps you can take to break through the algorithm – 13:28Links to Resources Mentioned in Today’s EpisodeEp001 – How to Use & Leverage Live Video for Your BusinessReview this podcast on iTunes!Transcript below Hello, and a super warm welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast. I hope you are having a really lovely week wherever you are in the world, and that the sun is shining, because it always makes me feel better when the sun is shining. This week I am going to be talking about Facebook algorithm. I know what you're thinking, "Teresa, why do you want to bore us with stories about Facebook algorithm," a word that in itself sounds boring, and dull, and confusing. I know, I really do, but I promise you this episode is going to be a good one. I find the subject, personally, really fascinating. Maybe I need to go out more, but I really do find it fascinating and, actually, it's something that people think they know about, and then they find out what it means to them and their Social Media, and they realise that, actually, they didn't realise they knew all that there was to know about the algorithm, and it's going to help you.It's going to help you post better, get more engagement, and know what you can do to help improve your reach of your Social Media, so please stick with me, because I really think this is going to be a good one. What does “algorithm” mean, anyway? Let's start by telling you what the word algorithm means. In very layman's terms, it's just basically a word that explains a set of rules that Social Media platforms use that determines who gets to see your post, or not. Let me break that down a bit. So, pretty much every Social Media platform has an algorithm of some sort or other. Obviously, Facebook owns Instagram, so you imagine theirs is a fairly similar algorithm that they have. Now, it's made up by some very, very smart people, and they set up some rules, and the rules dictate the content that you see. So, let me explain, and I'll use Facebook as the example.Let's say my husband and I followed exactly the same pages on Facebook and we had exactly the same friends. We could come to our timeline, so the feed, the thing that you see that has the posts on it, and we could literally have our phones next to each other, and we could see entirely different content, even though we have the same friends and we follow the same pages. The reason for this is Facebook will look at how you use your specific profile. They will look at the types of things that you engage with i.e. do you like posts that are videos, or posts that get you to click somewhere, what pages, or what people do you interact with mostly?For instance, there are some friends that I have on my profile that I like lots of their things, because either it makes me laugh, or I particularly engage with it, or whatever the reason is, but what that is going to mean is that Facebook will keep showing me their content, because by me affirming that I like it by either watching it, engaging with it, giving it a like, commenting on it, sharing the post, that's how Facebook knows that I like that post. What they will do, or what the algorithm does is it will say, "Okay, so if you like those sorts of posts we're going to show you more of those sorts of posts.Like I said, let's go back to the example, husband and I exactly the same friends, exactly the same pages, but we can see entirely different content, because of the way we interact with our page. So, why do the Social Media platforms put so much time and effort into an algorithm. Why do they even bother. Well, this has changed over the last few years, and it is constantly changing. The algorithm never stops changing, or so it seems. But, one of the reasons they've done this is as users of Social Media we are now getting absolutely bombarded with content. Every single day hundreds and thousands of posts are trying to get into our timeline, trying to get put in front of us. Again, think back just a few years ago as to how many Facebook friends you had.I remember, I did a cull quite a few years back, I decided to get rid of a load of people's profiles that, actually, if I didn't know them or if I wasn't really good friends with them then I just didn't need them as friends on my Facebook account, and I got down to something like 40 people that I decided to keep on there. And now, gosh, I can't even remember the last time I looked, but I pretty much accept friend requests from most people, because it's changed, it's changed the way you are. It's more about having those connections, that actually you don't mind so much connecting with more people. But, of course, more people means more content. More people posting every single day; therefore, more things in your timeline, and there's just too much. What Facebook does with the information it gets through its algorithms So, Facebook wants to decide what it wants to show you. It wants to know what do you like, and it wants to show you more of it. So, it's now just down to there's too much stuff to show and, therefore, they've got to reduce it. It's also down to your enjoyment of the platform. Social Media platforms are super aware that we are being bombarded and our time is being sucked up everywhere we go. Every single Social Media platform, and at any point we could go, "Do you know what, I haven't got time for this. I haven't got time to scroll through loads of content that I'm not interested in," and that's why they put the algorithm in place. They want you to love what you see. They want you to enjoy taking in that content, for you to find it engaging, and also find it appropriate.That's where kind of the advertising bit slips in, as well. Facebook algorithms and advertising The algorithm will help them place adverts in your feed that are much more appropriate to you and what you like to do, or what you like to engage with, so when you see an advert it should be something that you're interested in. Why you need to care about Facebook’s algorithms You might be sitting there thinking, "Well, why should I care what people see in their feeds, or what the algorithm does?" It's obviously something that we can't control, it's there whether we like it or not.But, the reason we should care is because it controls whether people see your posts from your business page or not. Now, years ago before, I suppose, social media got as popular as it was now, or maybe before there was as much advertising as there is now, the organic reach, which is the reach that you get on a post that you haven't paid for. So, if I put up a post today, the organic reach would show me how many people had seen that post without me putting any money behind it. Years ago the organic reach used to be really, really, good, and people loved social media for that reason. Over the years it's got worse, and worse, and worse and, basically, not that this is ever publicly come out and been proved by someone like Facebook. If we take Facebook as an example, if you put a post out today roughly between 1% and 2% of people who follow your page are going to see that post.Let me say that again, if you have a Facebook page with 100 people on it and you put a post out today, the chances are Facebook are going to show that post to only one to two people who follow that page, which is a huge impact on how much interaction and engagement you could get from that post. Often people think that if you have 100 people that like your page, every time you do a post every one of those hundred are going to see it, and that's just not the case. That's why the algorithm is important.Now, I know what you're thinking. Well, I'm doomed. No one's ever going to see a