What We Know About Facebook's Algorithms in 2023

By April 2023, Facebook's audience amounted to 2.989 billion users – those who visited the platform at least once a month or used the Like button and were tracked with cookies during a specified period. That’s why it is so often used for brand promotion. On the other hand, such several users mean that new publications, no matter how beautiful, informative, and valuable, can get lost among others. Below, we will discuss how to avoid this, focusing on AI-powered algorithms on Facebook.

What Is The Facebook Algorithm

Let's start with the definition. The Facebook algorithm is a set of rules determining what content should be displayed in users' feeds. The main task of the FB algorithm is to demonstrate publications that are most relevant to a particular user's interests (search history, likes, views, etc.) and, thus, maximize their presence within the platform.

Key Ranking Signals Used by The Facebook Algorithm in 2023

Now, we invite you to consider the key factors influencing the content ranking algorithm on Facebook.

The first factor of content distribution is the author's popularity of the specific post: users who regularly interact with your account will see your posts first.

The second of the key user engagement signals is the “freshness” of the publication: new posts are displayed in the feed first.

The third factor is the relevance of the content. For each user, it is determined by many parameters, such as the frequency of likes of similar publications, the frequency of searching for hashtags that define publications of this type, and the number of reactions left by other users.

Finally, the content format also influences how publications are ranked. Usually, preference is given to live broadcasts, reels, and stories.

Please note that all these rules are relevant only for content that passed regulatory compliance and did not violate the platform's internal policies and ethical considerations.

How to Get Your Content Seen by More People on Facebook

Now let's move from theory to practice and find out how to ensure maximum visibility for user-generated content to its target audience:

• Create high-quality content that would be of interest to your target audience – this means respecting both the technical aspects of publications (image quality, sound quality if it is a video, etc.) and semantic ones (informativeness, use of relevant hashtags, relevance of the text, etc.).
• Publish content at a time when your audience is most likely to be online – according to statistics dedicated to user behavior analysis on Facebook, the platform is most visited on Thursdays, from 8 am to 12 pm.
• Promote content through organic and paid channels – use advertising, as well as paid and free built-in promotion tools (for example, outreach and audience engagement campaigns) which are best suited to your promotional strategy.
• Ensure the correct frequency of contact with subscribers. The recommended frequency is 3.5-4.5+. That is, the user should see information about you at least 3-4 times, both in the context of one publication and in total with others;
  Use relevant hashtags and keywords – we have already written above about the importance of these actions,  and now, we will repeat: despite the seeming obsolescence of hashtags, they still take part in content moderation.
• Upload videos – like many other popular social platforms, Facebook prefers video content, so no effective social media promotion strategy is complete without a plan for its development; for example, live broadcasts, displayed on top of your other publications in your profile, are popular. You can learn more about how to stream on Facebook here.
• Collaborate with other companies or influencers – since the platform allows you to tag third-party users in publications, you can use this to promote your account by enlisting the support of influencers whose account topics are close to you.

List Facebook’s Recent Algorithm Changes

To sum up, let’s look at the last Facebook algorithm updates to provide you with the most comprehensive understanding of precisely what your publications should be to interest your target audience.

A highlight of the 2021 update was the ability to add 30 friends to your top list, which prioritized their posts above the rest. Thus, some influencers and brands resort to numerous tricks to get on this coveted list.

The next algorithm improvement in 2022 considered inventory, signals, forecasts, and relevance scores. Therefore, to bypass this algorithm, users must maximize their publications' frequency, expand their post formats' horizons (video is still the most relevant), and completely fill out their profiles.

As for 2023, the algorithm was enriched with a rule that gives priority to content from people, brands, and groups to which users are already connected. When it comes to ranking a video, its quality remains a priority.

All these ranking rules for 2021-2023 are relevant, so you need to rely on them to get top publications on Facebook.

Final Thoughts

We hope we have helped you figure out how to create personalized content for social networks. Now, you can bypass even the most sophisticated algorithms based on Machine Learning in social media. We also recommend reading other articles from our blog to get a complete picture of how to create an effective promotion strategy on popular social platforms.