The Algorithms Behind your Facebook News Feed Decoded

The largest social networking site on the Internet — Facebook — has more than one billion active users worldwide, but what used to be a consumer-oriented product has now transformed into a revenue-oriented machine. Through the constantly changing and developing algorithm formulas behind Facebook throughout the years, you may have noticed big changes in your news feed page.

An Advertising Platform

What used to be an organic social networking site has turned into a controlled advertising platform. Content marketing companies use Facebook as an advertising platform by promoting their content through Facebook, which then drives business in their direction. More and more promotional content is taking up users’ news feeds and is being driven by the algorithms behind Facebook. The goal of these algorithms is to show people what they want to see, but with studies showing that this is only “sometimes accurate,” that goal is often missed.

Content Overflow

Facebook explains that these algorithms are set in place because there is just too much content to see it all. You may have noticed that when viewing your news feed you don’t always see everything your friends post or comment on. This is because the algorithms pick and chose what you see, trying to attend to both content marketing companies as well as interactive activity between you and your friends.

The ‘Secret Recipe’

EdgeRank was once the ‘secret recipe’ to Facebook’s news feed algorithm equation that considered three factors: affinity, decay, and weight. This exact equation has been retired, but similar (yet more complicated) equations have since been implemented with interaction as the main focus.

Personalized News Feeds

With more promotional content appearing on Facebook, news feeds have become important for businesses in terms of targeting current and potential costumers. Content marketing companies view Facebook as a competitive battlefield for advertising. The algorithms behind Facebook, complicated and constantly changing, are intended to weed out specific ads and posts for a personalized news feed. However, whether or not this is successful is dependent on who you talk to.

Alyssa Koenig writes for Fusion 360, an SEO and content marketing agency. She writes for many other clients as well. Follow on Twitter.