Overview
The goal of News Feed is to connect people to the stories that matter most to them. As the center column for Facebook on the web and the main tab for Facebook on mobile, News Feed is the primary way that people interact with stories on Facebook.
People use News Feed everyday to stay in touch with friends and family and to stay informed about the world around them. We rely on a variety of signals to show people the stories that they care about. This is a constant work in progress and we are committed to communicating transparently about the changes that we make. If you're a media industry professional, you can get the latest updates about News Feed by visiting our collection of News Feed FYI blog posts.
How News Feed Works
How we look at what types of content matters to people
Everyone's News Feed is unique. We look at a range of signals when trying to show people the most meaningful stories, including:
- People and Pages - We prioritize posts from friends, public figures and Pages that people frequently interact with.
- Post Type - We prioritize the types of posts people frequently interact with (e.g. photos and links).
- Post Activity - We prioritize posts that have many likes, comments and shares, especially from people's friends.
How we let people control what they want to see
We know we don't always get it right, so we want to make it easy for people to tell us what types of content they most want to see. For example, people can select friends and Pages to see first or unfollow in News Feed Preferences.
How we evaluate how we're doing
We also work with thousands of people around the world that look at their News Feed everyday to give us information on what they like and don't like to see. We use feedback from this Feed Quality Panel to improve our News Feed ranking.
Publisher Best Practices for News Feed
Publishers are an incredibly important part of helping people on Facebook stay informed about what's happening in the world. As a publisher, you can follow the best practices below to best reach your audience on News Feed:
Write clear and compelling headlines for your link posts.
People prefer to see link post headlines that help them decide if they want to read the full article. In addition to click through, we look at time spent at the external link and the ratio of likes and comments to link clicks to determine what posts to show in News Feed. For example, if a lot of people click on a link but relatively few people click like, comment, or share - this suggests that people didn’t click through to something they found valuable and the post could receive a lower score.
Learn more about click-baiting headlines.
Create content with social context in mind.
People want to share posts that appeal to their identity and emotion. Think about what would make someone more likely to share your content when you're writing headlines and choosing images for your post.
Avoid overly promotional headlines and posts.
People want to see stories from friends and Pages they care about. In contrast, people often hide organic posts that try to push them to buy a product or install an app because these types of posts feel like ads.
Learn more about reducing overly promotional page posts.
Share links, photos and a variety of content.
When thinking of what type of posts to share, use the medium that best expresses your goal. For example, if your goal is to drive people to your website, use link posts instead of photo posts with the link embedded. In our studies, these posts have received twice as many clicks compared to links embedded in photo captions. In general, we recommend that you use the story type that best fits the message that you want to tell – whether that’s a status, photo, link or video.
Learn more about sharing links in posts.
For video posts, make sure you engage people in the first few seconds.
Your video posts will play automatically without sound when people scroll through News Feed. As a result, the first three seconds of your video needs to be engaging enough that people want to continue watching.
Learn more about video on Facebook.
Post frequently.
You can post frequently to your Page without worrying about spamming your fans or followers. News Feed's goal is to show each person the most relevant story.
Use interest targeting to reach specific audiences.
Interest targeting lets you reach niche audiences with posts that might not be relevant to all of your Page's fans.
Learn more about interest targeting.
Use Domain and Page Insights to try different types of posts and see the results.
Each publisher and audience is a bit different. So, we encourage you to test different types of content, posts, timing, and targeting to determine the mix that works best for you and your followers. We've built various analytics and insights tools to help you with this.
Domain Insights allow you to see which links from your domain are performing best across Facebook.
Page Insights help you track reach and engagement from your content on Facebook. For example, the Videos tab lets you see views and 30-second views at a Page level, top videos shared by your Page for a certain date range, and more.
Want timely updates about News Feed and other products?
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