Remember the days when your Facebook wall and newsfeed were cluttered with hundreds of photos of your cousin’s baby? Or the days when you had to look up your favourite Instagram accounts to see if they had posted anything new? With so much content out there on these platforms, Facebook and Instagram both knew they had to make some changes. Enter the algorithms.
All the content you see in your news feed on Facebook and Instagram now has been carefully selected by a number of influencing factors through a complex algorithm. This algorithm takes several things into consideration when deciding what to feature to you. They can be separated into three distinct elements:
- Connection – How connected is the user to the content, it’s themes, or it’s source?
- Engagement – What kind of action and what amount of action has the content attracted?
- Time – How current is the content/how long ago was it posted?
Connection
Although it may appear at first thought, that you will not be able to influence connection, there are still some things to consider in this sphere. Forget the people who aren’t interested in hotel stays and amenities, you shouldn’t be tailoring your posts to those who are not likely to book. Your audience sweet-spot are those who have already engaged with your content or those who are interested in what your brand is about. This is where things like remarketing and message tailoring come into play. Designing your message and tone to suit the audience you are targeting will increase the chances of them engaging with your content. Here are a few things to keep in mind before posting content to Facebook:
- Is this post relevant to the brand: Is the voice, tone and message consistent with other content?
