PLYMOUTH MARJON UNIVERSITY/ HANOI UNIVERISTY

OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

BA (Hons) International Professional English (2019/23)

Module code: IPRF07

Module title: PROFESSIONAL SKILL 1

PORTFOLIO TASK 1

Name: Phan Thu Hằng

Student ID Number :

Marjon ID: 20101808 HUST ID: 20193651

Cohort: 2019-2023 (K64)

Team: 04
Group’s Topic: Website
Facebook algorithm 2020

READING MATERIAL
A/ Source 1:
https://adchief.io/social-media-advertising-tips/2020/02/how-the-facebook-
algorithm-works-in-2020/

February 11, 2020

The Facebook algorithm is the set of rules that determine what posts appear at
the top of users’ newsfeed and who has priority in terms of organic reach. As
you certainly noted, over the years business pages kept losing organic reach. By
last year, only approximately 5.5% of the followers of a page see its posts, if
they are not boosted.

While the Facebook Team will continue to priorities content posted by friends
over pages, at least now you know what you are up against. For the first time
since its launch in 2004, Facebook decided to explain its users how its algorithm
works.

In this article, we will explain to you what influences the visibility of posts and
what you can do to increase the odds for organic reach. In general, the trend of
the Facebook algorithm stays the same: pages will lose priority over content
shared by private accounts (the users’ friends). And meaningful engagements
will have priority over other metrics in determining the hierarchy of Facebook
posts.

The most recent update to the algorithm that establishes the ranking of posts
takes into account four factors:

1. inventory
2. signals
3. predictions
4. score

Let us analyze each of them and see how they work.

  The Inventory

This element represents all the possible placements of content on the Facebook
interface. It includes the right and left side columns and the newsfeed. This is
the first level of assigning a specific post, either from a personal account or
from a publisher. As you know by now, the right side column is usually the
placement for ads (paid content).

 Signals

The signals represent the only element of the Facebook algorithm that the
publisher (the page) can control). Signals represent: type of content (image,
video, link, the purpose of the content, and the popularity of the post (likes,
shares, comments).

 Predictions

The predictions are based on the user’s past behavior with respect to various
types of content. Thus, if a user usually spends more time watching videos and
then liking and commenting on them, the predictive ranking will prioritize
videos for that user. If the user’s most frequent engagements are with links, this
type of post will have priority for that specific user.

 Score

The score is similar to the Google page rank in the understanding of the new
Facebook algorithm. Each post will be given a score according to the likelihood
that users will react to it in a positive manner.

According to Facebook, its top priority for 2020 is to create “meaningful

engagements” between users. The Facebook Team will be more proactive in
fighting:

 Fake news
 Hate speech
 Prohibited/restricted content
 Spam.

Thus, you should focus on creating and sharing content that is genuine,
informative, helpful and entertaining. More than ever, you need to keep your
followers engaged in order to generate positive signals and predictions for your
posts. The most valuable types of signals are the actions taken by users:
comments, replies, likes and shares.
As we have written on several occasions, video continues to be the content
format with the highest level of engagements. This means that you need to learn
how to turn your content into visual stories and find an efficient way to keep
creating new videos on a constant basis.

Last but not least, strive to provoke conversations with your posts. Ask
questions, provoke your followers to share their thoughts, encourage them to
debate and to keep the dialogue going. This will help your posts get a higher
rank from the Facebook algorithm and also get to know your customers better in
order to offer them products and services they need.

B/Source 2: Mark Zuckerberg’s facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571
“We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together
with the people that matter to us. That's why we've always put friends and
family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our
relationships improves our well-being and happiness.
But recently we've gotten feedback from our community that public content --
posts from businesses, brands and media -- is crowding out the personal
moments that lead us to connect more with each other.
It's easy to understand how we got here. Video and other public content have
exploded on Facebook in the past couple of years. Since there's more public
content than posts from your friends and family, the balance of what's in News
Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do -- help us
connect with each other.
We feel a responsibility to make sure our services aren’t just fun to use, but also
good for people's well-being. So we've studied this trend carefully by looking at
the academic research and doing our own research with leading experts at
universities.
The research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we
care about, it can be good for our well-being. We can feel more connected and
less lonely, and that correlates with long term measures of happiness and health.
On the other hand, passively reading articles or watching videos -- even if
they're entertaining or informative -- may not be as good.
Based on this, we're making a major change to how we build Facebook. I'm
changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find
relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”
 OUTLINE
A/Intro:
One of the biggest challenges Facebook faces is to keep people and businesses
happy with continuously driving change in its functionality. Recently, new
challenges have been added in this light of privacy of user data and fake news.
Understanding Facebook without understanding the Facebook algorithm will
limit you in efforts to use Facebook successfully. This article is about how the
FB algorithm works and how to make it work for you.
B/Body
1.What the Facebook algorithm is
The Facebook algorithm is the set of rules that decides which post show up in
what order based on user’s activities.
2.Why the Facebook algorithm was changed
-Public content like posts from businesses brands and media are crowding out
the personal moments that lead people to connect with each other.
-The news feed is polluted because Facebook pushes more businesses into
advertising and offers more places on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram to
advertise.
All this pollution of Facebook news feed is driving Facebook away from the
most important thing it does: helping people to connect to each other
SO: To give user a better overall experience, Facebook considers the following
interaction to be the most “meaningful engagements” in their new algorithm:
comments, reactions and shares.
2.How the new algorithm works
The new Facebook algorithm analyzes posts and arranges them based on four
different elements:
a)Inventory(content available)
b)Signals(considerations about the content)
 type of content(image, video,link)
 the purpose of content
 the popularity of the post(likes, shares, comments)- the engagement of
the post

c)Prediction (considerations about the person)

d)Overall score
Easy map: how the new FB algorithm works
looks at all the available posts analyzes these posts on various factors called
signals predicts how you would react to the postssummarizes all this with a
scoreThe post with higher score will feature higher in your News Feed

3. How to Make the Facebook Algorithm work for you:

To increase your organic reach of your post, you should focus on quality
instead of quantity. Only when you understand their challenges, motivations,
what they like to interact with; you will be able to create content that sparks
emotions. They will help your posts get a higher rank from the Facebook
algorithm.

These tips help you understand your target audience:

-Share content that is genuine, informative, helpful and entertaining

- Turn your content into visual stories

- Post consistently

- Start conversations that get people talking to each other

C/Conclusion

These information help user gain a better understanding to work with algorithm,
so that they can make each posts go further and maximize their reach on a very
specific platform.