You may have seen this status update:
“Due to Facebook’s new policy, only about 10% of people that ‘like’ a fan page will see the status updates. In order to see all posts and notifications just click over the ‘Liked’ button (beneath the cover photo) & activate the ‘show in news feed’ option.”
So the Question is, is this true? Yes and No! Firstly, this is not a new policy. Facebook has been using “EdgeRank” for some time now, what is new is the “promote” option now available to business pages with 400 likes or more.
“EdgeRank” is the algorithm that determines what items populate your News Feed. With all the friends people have and pages they like, most users would be overwhelmed to see all of the activity generated by these connections. Facebook, therefore, assigns a value to every possible story that could end up in the feed. This value is based on affinity, weight and time.
- Affinity is the relationship between the user and the page or friend that created an item.
- Weight is affected by the type of story, for instance, whether it is a photo upload or a comment on another person’s status.
- The third factor affecting EdgeRank is how recently an action was taken.
“Promoted” posts help increase the people you reach for any eligible post. It’s an easy and fast way to reach more of the people that Like your page and your friends
So, in a nutshell…
“Nothing has changed about how your posts are shared with the people who like your page.
A lot of activity happens on Facebook, and most people only see some of it in their news feeds. They may miss things when they’re not on Facebook, or they may have a lot of friends and pages, which results in too much activity to show all of it in their news feed.
If you don’t promote your post, many of the people connected to your page may still see it. However, by promoting a post, you’re increasing its potential reach so an even larger percentage of your page audience and the friends of those interacting with your post will see it.”
What do you think of the idea of promoted (sponsored) posts on Facebook?
