Facebook’s quest to make sure the News Feed remains relevant has implications to your Business Page as it determines which posts are seen by fans and how they rank in the feed.
As part of their Feed Quality Program thousands of people are asked on a daily basis to rate their experience. It has become clear that the actions people take, such as liking, sharing or commenting on a post, does not necessarily reflect what is most important to them.
To take an example: people want to be informed about certain events, e.g. sad news from a friend, and although they are interested in the story it does not mean they comment or like the post. They do however, spend time reading about this event and its updates. To make provision for this behaviour Facebook recently updated their News Feed ranking to factor in how much time is spent reading a post, regardless of whether the article was opened or not. The flip-side was also taken into consideration: should somebody open an article and immediately return to the news feed this is seen as an indication that the expectation created by the headline or post was not met.
Taking this feedback into account, the time spend on reading and viewing posts will now be part of the factors determining if your posts are seen in the news feed and how it will rank.
Users also mentioned that they would like to see diversity. They enjoy reading posts from different publishers and do not want to see a string of posts from the same publisher.
How does this impact your Facebook Business Page?
Content remains king. Give your users information they find useful and entertaining. Consider the user and build a relationship with them through your content, give them a reason to spend time on your page. Facebook remains a social platform, respect the fact that somebody has allowed you into their space and reward them with quality content.
Stagger your posts throughout the day. No reason to bombard your fans with a heap of posts all at once and get them irritated, rather provide them with content throughout the day or week. Always give your fans a reason to let them look forward to your next good quality post.
If you are providing your fans with good quality content, you should welcome these changes. Happy posting.