The popularity contest on Facebook just got a little more niche
It’s quickly becoming a popular habit to generalize people according to different social media platforms. Twitter is for “famous” people, MySpace is for “musical” people, Tumblr is for “special” people, and Facebook is for “popular” people.
If this broad categorization is true, then Facebook continues to be one of the best websites from which businesses may benefit. For a more concrete example, Facebook has recently changed an element in their News Feed algorithm that allows topics to be grouped together under the same category; Much like a popularity contest.
For example, if three friends have just posted on the topic of the new Harry Potter movie, then a listing of the activity will show up in the News Feed, grouping all the recent posts by friends on the topic together. The change was made this past Monday, August 8th.
In a quote made by Facebook when testing this new feature, they said that they wanted “to show you the most relevant and interesting information, and [that] this test is designed to show you trends among what your friends are saying.”
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This change is also summarized in the FAQ section, saying that the News Feed algorithm determines which content is most interesting based on a few factors: “how many friends are commenting on a certain piece of content, who posted the content, and what type of content it is (e.g. photo, video, or status update).”
Returning to the business aspect of this change, it seems to speak for itself.
By using specific keywords or “trending topics”, any business has the opportunity now for their pages to be seen more in the News Feed of other Facebook users. The key is to use these trending keywords and topics in order for the algorithm to place your Facebook activity in a good position in the News Feed.
This will lead to others commenting on, posting about and liking any updates you are sharing on your Facebook page. In turn, all of the action generated by Facebook users will group the content together, and bring it to the forefront of many more News Feeds than ever before increasing your visibility and thus, your popularity.
