Facebook’s algorithm is designed so that when entering our profile, we can see before anything else the posts of our close friends and the pages we follow.
An important part of Facebook’s success is that it has become easier to give away likes.
This helps the engagement of the pages, but how many of the follows that we give away, are they authentic?
In our daily navigation, we can find a number of interesting pages we like but sooner or later, we stop interacting with their contents and the algorithm stops showing its content.
No page wants to be forgotten and they are always trying to create attractive content, but what is more important than the people around us?
Friends, pages and groups?
Previously we went to social networks almost exclusively to know about our closest friends.
As people spent time in the networks, media and brands adapted their content to the people that left aside the traditional media to invest their time in social networks.
The engagement increased, but as Zuckerberg himself said, they never expected to get to the success they have today.
Based on trial and error, the platform has been commissioned to launch surveys with which they seek to know which people are the most important for their users.
After analyzing this data, they came out with a new algorithm that gives priority to the pages and groups that people follow more closely.
Groups have slowly begun to gain the attention of the average Internet user, since they act as a sort of forum in which specific topics are discussed, without distractions, without ads.
The new relevance algorithm has not only been based on that survey but on how much time a person has following a page and how often they interact with it, it will be displayed in your feed regularly.
Consensual Espionage
To “improve the products offered by Facebook”, the social network announced its “Study from Facebook” application.
What is it about? Simple.
A few months ago TechCrunch made a public complaint about the fact that Facebook had been paying minors to extract their browsing data through a VPN.
After installing Facebook Research, the company paid up to 20 dollars for people aged 13 to 35 years to give full access to their web activity.
After the scandal, the social network decided to open to the public with Study from Facebook, ensuring that it will only collect data from adults without sharing them with third parties.
The initiative has caused a lot of turmoil because of the ethical implications of exchanging data for money since the reason behind the study is “lend us your data and in return, we offer personalized advertising.”
Although people have the freedom not to access such an exchange, those who do will be putting their integrity at risk.
Facebook declared that this data will not be sold, but the network has not shown very ethical behavior recently.
Data analysis vs. information theft
Two concepts that are not clear in the new digital world is the theft of information and the analysis of data and the reason is the very slight line that separates the two practices.
On more than one occasion we have seen data compilation companies having problems due to the handling of the data of their users.
But at the moment of speaking out loud, we reach a fundamental point: how much are we allowing platforms to steal our data?
The truth of the current virtual situation is that users are torn between wanting a better service and personalized ads, and want to protect their data.
Many times in order to be up to date with digital trends, we are tempted to give unlimited access to companies, but is it really for us?
As marketers, we need people to want a personal service, as they give us a hint on what steps we should take to make campaigns more effective.
However, we also run the risk of falling into boring and predictable campaigns.
If we are going to be fully impacting our target audience, we must preserve the innovative spirit and give the user a surplus value with our product, so that he does not feel the need to try new horizons.
In the end, it is precisely this that Facebook has tried with the algorithm changes and feed renewals: to keep the audience intrigued since the data indicate that, although people keep their Facebook profile, they are using it less.
What are they looking for with this data collection? They need to know why people decide to log out on Facebook and move, either to sister networks like Instagram or to competitors such as TikTok.
Sources
www.socialmediatoday.com
www.newsroom.fb.com
www.elpais.com