Facebook Training Report

I virtually attended a Facebook seminar last week about the changing algorithm that is supposed to go into place soon on FB. Facebook will soon start splitting our accounts into “Friends and Family” and “Explore” for businesses, organizations, and causes. This means our Big Ocean posts will be in the Explore section. We will want to be near the top of that section for our audience.

The woman giving the seminar said that the new algorithm will reward video posts, especially when people watch more than 75% of the video. It will reward authentic, timely posts, posts scheduled directly through Facebook (not third-party or through Instagram), and videos posted directly (not through YouTube). It will reward posts that encourage interaction from our audience, like if it’s hot news, motivational, inspirational, or funny.

People want to share Facebook content on their own pages that puts them in a positive light, like, “Oooh, she really cares about kids in orphanages” or “She is so smart to share that article” or “That post she shared was so funny.”

The new algorithm will penalize posts/pages if people unlike the page or hide a post after seeing it. They will also penalize outbound links, “overly promotional” posts (ones that ask people to buy or enter a giveaway or visit a site because they want us to pay for ads to do that instead), or if we reuse content from ads.

Question: What do you mean by penalize?

Answer: By reward and penalize, I mean that Facebook has an algorithm (a giant, super-complicated math formula) that increases or decreases visibility of posts based on how our audience reacts to them. If someone comments on or “likes” one of our posts, the Facebook algorithm makes it so more people can see it. That’s a reward. The more reaction, the more reward. So if someone “likes” a post, the post gets a little reward; if someone “Reacts” to a post with a heart, sad face, etc., the post gets more reward; if they “share” it we see even more. If someone comments on a post and then shares it, the post gets the largest return. We also increase our following when people use the hashtags within our campaigns.

If someone “Hides” the post or “unfollows” our page, the algorithm decreases the number of people who will see it. That’s a penalty.

The seminar talked about targeting our audience specifically with ads and targeted posts. This is an opportunity to explore in the future as we have funding.

After the seminar, I looked over our social media and am so proud of what our team is accomplishing!!! Angela is creating posts that are exactly what the seminar recommended. No wonder we are seeing such a positive increase in traffic!

In future, perhaps an additional person on our media team could be in charge of video posts.

Written by Alicia Moulton,

Big Ocean Media Director