Although Facebook continues to lose new users to platforms like TikTok, the social networking site does still boast an active user base. With roughly 2.93 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2022, Facebook is the most used online social network worldwide.
With this in mind, Meta published a new overview showing how marketers can maximize their reach on Facebook, and grow their fan base via News Feed distribution.
Facebook’s News Feed algorithm historically relied on these key elements when deciding who sees what content:
- What content has been posted? What posts are available from friends, other creators and Pages that we can show?
- Who might like this content? We consider a multitude of signals such as who posted the content, when it was posted, what was the topic and past user behavior, among others.
- How likely are people to engage with the post? We try to predict how likely a given person is to engage with your post and find it meaningful. We make a variety of these predictions for each piece of content.
- How interested will the audience be in this post? Based on all of the data we have gathered on the post, which pieces of content should get priority?
When considering Facebook engagement in 2022 specifically, Meta says that it now views Facebook engagement in two ways:
- Connected Distribution – Your posts are seen by those who follow you on Facebook. This is your core audience on the platform.
- Unconnected Distribution – Your posts are seen by those who don’t follow you, but may be interested in your content. This type of distribution can come through other users sharing and re-sharing your posts or from our recommendations in our “Suggested for You” sections.
Both of these types of engagement have existed in Facebook for years, but the latter element is getting more specific focus, as Meta looks to pump more AI-fueled content recommendations into your feed. In fact, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg flagged the company’s plan to double the amount of AI-recommended content in user feeds by the end of the year.
As per Zuckerberg:
“Right now, about 15% of content in a person’s Facebook feed and a little more than that of their Instagram feed is recommended by our AI from people, groups, or accounts that you don’t follow. We expect these numbers to more than double by the end of next year.”
In other words, ‘Unconnected Distribution’ is set to become a much bigger factor in determining your Facebook post reach – which means marketers need to consider how Unconnected Distribution works in the broader process.
Meta provided some guidance on how to maximize Unconnected Distribution
How each of these elements factors into Facebook’s ‘Unconnected Distribution’ algorithms is not yet clear, but this does indicate that Facebook will promote as much original content as it can, while optimizing for engagement remains a key consideration.
If you need assistance leveraging Facebook or any other digital platform, please contact us today.
You can read Meta’s full overview for creator distribution here.
