Navigating Facebookâs algorithm and advertising
Improve your news feed ranking
You’re posting to Facebook regularly but not getting any traction. Is it time to give up? No. With Facebook, persistence and consistence is key.
Of the 1500-plus stories a person might see whenever they log in to Facebook, Facebook might display approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to the user, displaying what it believes that user will enjoy the most based on previous engagement and group and page involvement.
So how do you get cut through?
To improve your ranking in the news feed, try posting several images with your post rather than just one 'hero' image. Facebook tends to rank these posts higher because it sees multiple photos as an 'album' and assumes it is a more social post.
It's also a good idea to get your staff, friends and family to like your pages on Facebook and Instagram. The more likes and engagement a post gets in the first minutes of posting, the higher it will rank. Every comment and engagement will push the post higher in people's news feeds. Encourage them to add 'reactions' rather than just a 'like'.
You could also add a 'feeling' or emoji as well as relevant hashtags to your post as Facebook uses these to prioritise posts of interest.
Facebook’s ad policies
Facebook continually reviews its ad policies and recent amendments and tweaks have impacted how we can promote health education and information, particularly if we choose to utilise paid promotion options such as boosting and sponsoring posts.
Promoted posts can’t “imply a personal attribute or characteristic of a group or individual”. So, while you can for example, refer to pain, you won’t gain approval to promote content that asks people about that pain. View Facebook’s policy on personal attributes.
There are also updated guidelines around promoting personal health. Advert content must not imply or attempt to generate a negative self-perception in order to promote dietary, weight loss or other health-related products. See Facebook's policy on health promotion.
As with any content on social media, it is vital to focus on the objective of your post before you post it. If you believe it is a post you will likely boost or you have decided to promote it as an ad, focus on the image or visuals you will use, rather than lots of text. This will serve the dual purpose of attracting attention in news feeds and getting your ad approved by Facebook.
It’s worth pointing out that Facebook is very buggy and sometimes its ad review programs will reject your ad with little explanation or reason. It’s often best to start again rather than edit an ad in order to get it accepted.