Last week, Facebook announced a new News Feed feature that will show users more updates from Pages they haven’t actually chosen to follow. From now on, your own news feed will display updates from Pages that you haven’t liked if they’re about other Pages that you have liked.
Using Facebook’s example, if you like Dwight Howard on Facebook, you might see a Bleacher Report update about him if they’ve tagged him in their post. As Facebook notes in the announcement, this already happens with updates from friends. The company tested the feature for Pages, and found that people gave this kind of content high scores in surveys.
“We look at many factors to make sure the most relevant stories appear in News Feed, including which posts are getting the most engagement (such as likes, comments, shares and clicks) across all of Facebook,” says product manager Andrew Song. “We also consider which posts are getting the most engagement from people who like both the Page that posted and the Page that was tagged.”
“For example, if many people who like Dwight Howard also like the Bleacher Report, it suggests that these two Pages are connected,” he adds. “If we see that people who like both the Bleacher Report and Dwight Howard are liking the post above, that’s an indication that it may be relevant for people who only like Dwight Howard. This means some Page posts that tag other Pages may be seen by new people.”
Facebook considers the feature another way for people to discover conversations around topics they’re may be interested in. Last month, Facebook made a similar announcement when it introduced the new “Trending” feature.
“Today we’re announcing Trending, a new product that’s designed to surface interesting and relevant conversations in order to help you discover the best content from all across Facebook.”
However, as you can see below, Trending topics are less intrusive as they appear on the side, rather than in the News Feed.
Now Page Admins will need to figure out how this change will affect the Pages they manage. It is just one more example of how Facebook keeps modifying its algorithms to maximize revenues while trying to keep user engagement. Time will tell if they achieve both goals…
Until next time, this is Manuel Gil del Real (MGR)
Photos by Facebook
