Understanding the Facebook algorithm should be the top priority of anyone looking to use the platform to market their business or profile. In layman’s terms, the algorithm is the set of regulations around how content is ranked and presented to users on the platform.
Utilizing something Facebook terms “personalized ranking”, users’ feeds are presented with new content in descending order of interest. Preserving user retention and maximizing value is the top-most priority of Facebook and showing them relevant, meaningful content is the best way of doing that.
So, what should you do to hack the algorithm and grow your Facebook page in 2024? With millions of posts competing for the same spot, how do you get ahead of everyone?
Here are a few tips on how you can cross the barrier and successfully push your content to your target audience:
- Understand your audience
Audience research is the best way to understand your target audience, what they want, how they want it, and when they want it. Users have a lot of interests and each of their interests is probably catered by thousands (if not millions) of businesses worldwide. You must know the kind of content that your audience wants to get yourself ahead of the competition and gain those crucial ranking factors needed to boost your content.
This can be done by the creation of relevant content, which can mean content that your audience has interacted with in the past. Facebook algorithm gauges the time users spend on each post, including the expansion of comments and engaging with the post itself to gauge relevancy.
Similarly, meaningful content that garners reactions from users and they share the content ahead with their friends and family can be a great way of getting a pat on the back from the algorithm.
- Improve engagement and interactions
When you have understood your audience and the kind of content they want, it is important to optimize that content to ensure your posts get engaged. Users respond to a variety of posts; your posts must be stimulating enough for people to spend time on.
The value of a specific post cannot be gauged in exact terms, but going along relative standings a post must get adequate attention from users for the Facebook algorithm to boost it to other users with similar interests.
Some good ways of increasing engagement on your posts is to conduct giveaways or competitions on your post, for example, ask your followers to share the post with their friends or tag their friends on the post to qualify for a raffle draw.
A post that has users tagging their friends and their friends’ engaging back is perceived to be high quality. Consider it a shortcut of letting the algorithm know that your page can retain its audience and attract attention from other users too, hence being worthy of being shown to other users with similar interests as well.
- Engage with comments on your posts
What do you do when you get comments on your posts? You engage back! It is vital for your page’s growth and the Facebook algorithm recognizes and boosts pages that actively engage back with users’ comments.
Think of it like this: you’re building a community! That community likes your content and will continue to engage with your page as a whole, steadily growing your Facebook page and constantly increasing your credibility.
- Post at the right time to maximize reach
The trick to maximizing a post’s reach is to garner attention and engagement from users in the first couple of hours. A post that has high engagement within the first few hours of posting is immediately boosted to other users as the post is “fresh”. This is paired with the relevancy score going up in the eyes of the algorithm because of the number of engagements.
Facebook analytics shows you details on what time your audience is commonly active on the platform and you can use that to deduce the best time to post. Additionally, you can research the best times to post depending on your niche.
Some of the best times to post are between noon and 1 PM on weekdays as that is mostly lunch break for working individuals and 8-9 PM as that is just before people go to bed.
Use this as a reference and conduct A/B testing to figure out what time bracket works for you best. Once you have figured out the best time frame, stick to it with your future posts.
- Collaborate with influencers to project authenticity
Influencers are anyone whose opinion assist others in forming their opinion. Celebrities, public entities/people, and more recently, social media stars make up most of the influencers in the UK.
Using influencers to boost your content is a great way of directly tapping into their followers. Choosing the right influencer is very important; get a model to endorse your fashion or cosmetics brand for it to garner results!
An influencer tagging you in a post or using the more recent “Paid Post” option on Facebook can be a good way of directing traffic to your page and you can expect an increment in engagements as a result of the collaboration.
Followers of the influencers liking your page is a very good sign as well and increases your page’s relevancy numbers for Facebook’s algorithm. The end goal of getting linked with an influencer is to boost your credibility in front of the right audience as well, not just the algorithm.
- Stay on top of analytics
Once you have your strategy in place and you have started executing it, keep a strict check on the analytics of your campaign to ascertain success. Avenues for improvement can be found out as well or bottlenecks can be identified that are holding back your page’s performance.
Small factors like your page category, description, etc. also come into play when Facebook boosts your page in front of users. Detailed suggestions are often given using AI by Facebook analytics that can be used to optimize your strategy.
Viewing metrics like the page’s rating, the reach of your content, and the number of engagements can be a good way of determining the effectiveness of your strategy. Reminding you of the best time for new posts as well, since initial boosts in engagement can easily translate into better growth.
- Keep yourself updated with updates to the algorithm
The most important aspect of consistent success on Facebook is to stay updated with the algorithm. It is regularly updated and these changes can often make or break your page’s success in the long run.
For example, Facebook inherently favours pages with diverse media types. A page that posts a mixture of images, videos GIFs, etc. is often rewarded with higher rankings. Follow a reliable source for information like Facebook’s blog or Hootsuite, Hubspot, etc. to stay updated with changes to the system.
Conclusion
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