Facebook has made some changes to its News feed to thin out the amount of posts that may come off as “spammy.” The new update to the Facebook News Feed algorithm will reduce the amount of posts published that have click baiting headlines.
What is click-bait?
Most of us, if not all of us are guilty of click-bait headlines. These headlines are written to encourage users to click on the link to find out more information. These posts are written to help generate more traffic to websites and blogs and generally begin to appear higher up in your Facebook News Feed.
How Facebook is reacting to click-bait.
After conducting a survey, Facebook found out that 80% of the time users want to see headlines that provide enough information that will help them decide whether or not they want to read the article instead having to click through and find more information. Because Facebook wants you to see the posts that you actual care about they will be penalizing publishers who are guilty of click-baiting.
How will Facebook determine what is click-bait?
By tracking the amount of time spent reading an article that has been linked to from Facebook, this will help determine what might be click-bait. If more time is spent reading the article instead immediately clicking out and back to Facebook then this article is considered valuable.
Facebook will also track the engagement that a post gets. For example, if the link is generating traffic but users are not engaging with it by commenting, liking or sharing, then Facebook will conclude that the content wasn’t of value and not worth sharing to others.
How will this affect you and your Facebook personality?
If you read this and can say, yep I have 100% used click-baiting, then you need to make some changes to your posts! If not you will see traffic from your Facebook decrease!
By Giovanna DaPrato