Your Facebook feed is personalized based on many factors, including your connections, activity, interests, and Facebook’s ranking algorithm. Facebook uses machine learning to determine which posts are most relevant to you and likely to generate engagement. Let’s explore what exactly determines the posts you see at the top of your News Feed.
Your Connections
The biggest factor determining your Facebook feed is who you are connected to and how you interact with them. Content from friends and family you engage with frequently is prioritized. If you like, comment on, and react to a friend’s posts often, you’re likely to keep seeing more of their content. Pages and groups you’ve liked will also show up frequently in your feed, especially if you regularly engage with their posts. Essentially, Facebook’s algorithm aims to show you more of what you already engage with.
Close Friends
In 2018, Facebook introduced the “Close Friends” feature which allows you to designate your inner circle on the platform. Posts from accounts you add to your Close Friends list may be more prominently featured in your News Feed. Interactions with Close Friends are also prioritized when Facebook determines top stories. So staying active and engaged with your closest connections on the platform is a big way to influence what Facebook shows you.
Facebook Friends vs. Instagram Friends
If you have both Facebook and Instagram connected, Facebook will prioritize posts from friends who you interact with across both platforms. So if you regularly like and comment on a friend’s Instagram content, Facebook’s algorithm will show you more of their Facebook posts as well in an effort to align with your cross-platform behavior.
Pages and Groups
In addition to friends, pages and groups you interact with also determine your Facebook feed. When you like or follow a Facebook page or join a group, you’ll start seeing posts from that page or group. How often you see their content depends on your engagement. If you frequently react to, comment on, and click on posts from a page or in a group, Facebook will show you more of them. Pages and groups you barely interact with may have their posts demoted in your feed.
Recent Activity in Groups
One small factor that can influence your feed is recent activity within your groups. When you visit a group and engage with posts, Facebook will sometimes bump that group up in your feed temporarily to show you what you missed. So if you step away from a group for a while, visiting it again and liking posts can result in seeing more of that group for a short time.
Your Interests
Facebook also personalizes your feed based on topics and interests you’ve shown an affinity for, either through your activity on Facebook or information from third-party data brokers. If you frequently engage with posts about a certain topic, like photography or politics, Facebook will show you more of that type of content. Pages and public content related to topics you’ve demonstrated interest in will get boosted in your feed, even if you don’t follow those pages.
Explore Feed
Facebook’s Explore Feed specifically surfaces posts it thinks you might be interested in based on your activity, even if they’re not from your friends and pages. The Explore Feed algorithm looks at posts that are going viral, topics trending across Facebook, and your interests to recommend content. Clicking on posts in your Explore Feed provides a signal to Facebook to show you more of that type of content.
Engagement and Interactions
How you engage with posts also signals to Facebook what you want to see more of in your News Feed. When you like, comment on, click, save, react to, or share posts, that provides data to Facebook on what types of posts resonate with you. Posts that receive lots of engagement across Facebook may also be boosted in your feed, even if they aren’t from one of your connections.
Ranking Algorithm
Facebook designed its ranking algorithm to predict which posts you are mostly likely to have meaningful interactions with. It considers your past engagement history, interests, connections to the poster, and more. Content you consistently engage with gets ranked higher, while posts you scroll past without reacting to may be ranked lower in your feed over time.
Amplified or Suppressed Content
In some cases, Facebook purposely amplifies or suppresses certain types of posts in your News Feed, regardless of your specific interests and engagement patterns. For example, Facebook often amplifies posts from close connections that spark conversation and community. On the other hand, it may suppress clickbait, sensational content, or posts promoting the spread of misinformation. These interventions are intended to improve the overall News Feed experience.
How You Use Facebook
How, when, and where you access Facebook can also impact what you see in your feed. Facebook may customize your News Feed differently for quick scrolls during the day vs. longer browsing sessions in the evening, for example. Location, device type, internet speed, timezone, and other signals about how you use Facebook help inform what content might be most relevant to you.
Facebook Mobile Apps
The Facebook feed on mobile apps can vary somewhat from the desktop experience. Posts with auto-play video and live streams may be amplified in the mobile feed, while content better suited for desktop takes a backseat. Mobile feeds tend to favor posts that can be easily viewed and quickly scrolled through on a smaller screen.
Facebook News Feed vs. Most Recent
The default Facebook News Feed view shows the posts ranked algorithmically in the order Facebook predicts you want to see them. If you switch to the Most Recent view, you’ll see all new posts from your connections in strict chronological order without filtering. So the choice between News Feed and Most Recent provides you some control over curation vs. an unfiltered stream.
Your Feedback on Posts
Facebook’s algorithm also takes into account direct feedback you’ve provided on posts. If you commonly hide or snooze posts from a friend, page, or group, Facebook will show you less content from them. You can also use the “Show me more/less posts like this” options on posts to further tune your preferences. Providing this explicit feedback in either direction trains Facebook’s rankings over time as you teach it what you do and don’t want to see.
News Feed Preferences
You can directly control your News Feed by accessing News Feed Preferences in your Facebook settings. Here, you can prioritize who you see first, prefer posts with photos and videos, reorder favorites at the top, and snooze people, pages, or groups for up to 30 days.
News Feed Control Campaigns
Facebook occasionally runs tests where it lets some users control their News Feed content breakdown. These could be options like seeing more friends and family, local news and information, entertaining videos, etc. If you get one of these tests, the choices you make there will also influence your News Feed rankings.
Advertising and Sponsored Posts
Facebook makes the bulk of its revenue through advertising, so ads inevitably influence what appears in your News Feed as well. Facebook allows advertisers to target ads based on user data like demographics, interests, and behavior on and off the platform. If you fall into a target audience, expect to see relevant ads mixed into your feed.
Clicking on Ads
Interacting with ads signals to Facebook to show you more of that type of content. Clicking on or engaging with an ad leads Facebook to infer you have interest in the topic, increasing the odds you’ll see related promoted posts. Be choosy about the ads you engage with unless you want to see more of them.
Advertiser Payments
Advertisers can pay Facebook to increase the reach and visibility of their posts through Facebook’s “boosting” feature. Boosted posts have a greater chance of appearing in your News Feed, especially if you fit the advertiser’s intended demographic and interests.
Facebook’s Testing and Optimization
Facebook is constantly running tests to optimize how the News Feed ranking algorithm functions. This includes controlled experiments like showing some users more video or posts from friends to see how it impacts their engagement. If a test demonstrates significantly positive results, Facebook may roll out the new ranking model more broadly.
Breaking Updates Test
One long-running test relates to high-velocity viral content and breaking news updates. Some users may see more of these ephemeral posts that spike in popularity as Facebook evaluates whether highlighting trending topics improves people’s experience.
Curated News Test
In this test, Facebook is exploring adding a dedicated news section to some users’ feeds, with both curated top stories and personalized recommendations. If the experience drives more news consumption, it could become a permanent fixture.
Facebook Feed Algorithm Changes
Facebook is constantly evolving how its ranking algorithm determines your News Feed, typically making major changes every few months. This means what reaches the top of your feed can change over time as Facebook prioritizes different signals and factors.
Focus on Friends and Family
In early 2018, Facebook updated its algorithm to boost posts from friends, family, and groups at the expense of public content from pages and publishers. The goal was to make News Feed more social and relationship-focused, though the impact on traffic to news sites was controversial.
Meaningful Interactions
In 2021, Facebook refined its algorithm to lift posts driving “meaningful interactions” – back-and-forth discussion, comments, sharing ideas. The update aimed to reduce passive video watching and scrolling without engagement.
Recommendation Algorithm
One of Facebook’s ongoing major projects is developing an AI-driven recommendation algorithm similar to TikTok’s “For You” feed. This would shift Facebook to be more driven by AI recommendations than posts from direct connections. But risks around harmful misinformation spreading on the platform have slowed deployment.
Conclusion
In summary, the Facebook News Feed ranking algorithm considers who you’re connected to, your interests, engagement patterns, feedback, and how you use Facebook to determine the top posts you see. It aims to show you relevant and meaningful content most likely to resonate with you. But because the ranking factors shift over time, your Facebook feed continues to evolve based on your changing habits and preferences.