Identification of the Preferences Signals of Facebook Algorithm in Prioritising Page Posts on Users’ Feeds

Abstract

With an objective to deliver a relevant experience to its users, the social media platform Facebook employs a backend algorithm to select and identify the page posts, to further populate them on the user’s newsfeeds. The algorithm receives indications or signals from the user activities/actions on the platform w.r.t the posts uploaded/publicly communicated by the pages. In this article, the authors have studied the important user actions from the Facebook algorithm point of view through a systematic analysis of academic and industry-based literature to unearth the user action preferences of the secret and always-changing Facebook algorithm. Basis the findings, the authors have also suggested a conceptual model that drives higher user engagement for the pages. Results reveal that at the page level, ‘Follow’ and ‘Share’ are positive indicators for the algorithm, while ‘Unfollow’ and ‘Page Block’ are negative signals that impact a page’s visibility on the users’ newsfeed. At the post level, ‘Share’, ‘Comments’ and ‘Reactions’ are the positive signals of rankings whereas ‘Unfollow’, ‘Hide’ and ‘Snooze’ are a negative set of user actions. The findings of this article are extremely vital for the millions of Facebook page owners/marketers to optimise the overall results.