What You Need to Know About the New Facebook Algorithm Update
Facebook, a hub for interaction with family and friends, has quickly grown into a source for entertainment as well as news and health information. Like most other places on the internet, Facebook allows for information to spread at the speed of light. While this works wonderfully for spreading important family events or global news, this proves to be quite the disadvantage when it comes to the spread of misinformation. The newest update to the Facebook algorithm, however, works to clean up users’ feeds with a new filter that downgrades posts with misleading health claims. Here’s what you need to know about Facebook’s algorithm update.
How does it work?
Facebook announced two updates for the way posts are ranked based on two considerations. One, if a post is making exaggerated or misleading claims, and two, if the post is promoting a product backed by these health-claims. Much like previous updates to demote spammy content like click-bait, the algorithm demotes posts by identifying keywords or phrases that are typically found in these kinds of harmful posts in order to predict which other posts contain misinformation. Then, it simply pushes them lower in News Feeds to reduce views and the overall reach of the post.
How will it affect Facebook pages?
Unless its content focuses primarily on exaggerated health claims, Facebook pages shouldn’t see too much of a change at all. These updates merely aim to enhance the user experience and promote quality content rather than information or products that trick innocent users.
What does this all mean for your business?
If your business promotes health products or health information, now might be a good time for you to take a quick look through your content to make sure it doesn’t contain any keywords Facebook might consider exaggerated or misleading. Because this algorithm is still fairly broad in how it chooses posts to downgrade, it could also affect posts promoting real products that chose unfortunate descriptions. Do your own research and read through some of the posts Facebook is working to downgrade. From there, you can cross-reference some of the keywords or phrases you find within your own content. Strong product descriptions and properly optimized content are more important than ever.
Need help drafting content and product descriptions that fit within Facebook’s guidelines? Kraus Marketing is here to help you with everything from SEO optimization and copy-writing to strategy and posting. Contact us today for more information!