If you’ve noticed your Facebook feed becoming overrun with suggested posts, pages, and stories, you’re not alone. Many users have reported seeing fewer posts from friends and an influx of content recommended by Facebook’s algorithms. While this can be annoying if you preferred seeing more updates from your connections, there are some reasons behind the shift as well as ways to tailor your feed.
The Shift Towards Suggested Content
In 2018, Facebook announced that public content from friends and family would be making up roughly 4% of the average user’s feed. The rest would be posts from pages, groups, and events a user follows along with “suggested” posts from accounts they don’t follow. This change was part of Facebook’s new algorithm that prioritized “meaningful” content over posts from brands and publishers. The goal was to create a more personalized, engaging feed with the types of posts users enjoyed interacting with the most.
Some additional reasons you may be seeing more suggested posts include:
- Facebook wants users to discover new accounts, Pages, and groups they may find interesting. Suggestions help expose you to more of the platform.
- The friends and Pages you follow aren’t posting as much. With less original content, suggested posts fill the void.
- Facebook’s algorithm thinks you’ll engage with suggested content based on your past behavior.
- Advertisers and Pages boost their posts to reach wider audiences, increasing their appearance.
While the influx of suggestions may seem jarring, Facebook claims this leads to increased meaningful interactions between users as opposed to passively scrolling through a brand-dominated feed.
Types of Suggested Content
There are a few different categories of suggested posts you may encounter in your feed:
Suggested For You
These are posts, Pages, Groups, and other content that Facebook believes you’ll be interested in based on your profile, past engagement, location, demographics, and what’s trending around you. These suggestions are personalized just for your feed.
Suggested Posts
These are public posts from accounts you don’t follow that Facebook thinks you may want to see or find interesting. They may be related to your interests, local discoveries, timely content, trending topics, and viral posts gaining a lot of traction.
Featured Items
Facebook may highlight popular videos, links, Pages, and public figures by showing these “featured” items higher up in your feed. These are generally popular posts many users are engaging with.
Sponsored Posts
You’ll also encounter sponsored posts from businesses who pay Facebook to promote their content. These appear in your feed because the advertiser chose to target users matching your demographics and interests.
Friends’ Likes and Comments
When your friends interact with public posts, these may also show up as suggestions within your feed. For example, if a friend likes a local restaurant’s Facebook Page, you may see that Page suggested to you afterward.
Limiting Suggested Content in Your Feed
If you want to curate your Facebook feed to contain fewer suggestions and more posts from friends, groups, and Pages you follow, there are some steps you can take:
Unfollow Pages and Groups
Go through the Pages and groups you currently like or follow and trim down the list to only those you want to see frequently in your feed. Unlike unfriending someone, unfollowing a group won’t notify anyone or remove you as a member, it will just stop posts from those Pages showing up.
See First Priority
You can select friends, groups, and Pages to always see higher in your feed as part of Facebook’s “See First” preferences. Just visit the Page, group or friend profile and select “See First” to prioritize them.
Snooze Suggestions
If you want to temporarily hide suggested posts, you can snooze these for 30 days. When you see a suggested post in your feed, click the three dots in the upper right corner and choose “Snooze suggested for 30 days.”
React to Recommendations
Interacting with suggested posts by liking, commenting, sharing, or other reactions will signal to Facebook you want to keep seeing similar content. Likewise, hiding or marking the suggestion as “Not Interested” will decrease related suggestions in the future.
Adjust News Feed Preferences
Under “News Feed Preferences” in your Facebook Settings, you can prioritize posts from friends, downgrade suggested posts, and sort content chronologically rather than algorithmically.
Follow Hashtags and Trending Topics
Another way to find content you’re interested in is following hashtags and trending topics. Search for terms like #cats, #recipes, #news, etc. and then follow these subjects to see related public posts in your feed.
Why Facebook Uses Suggestions
While an influx of suggested posts may seem random or irrelevant at first, Facebook does have logical reasons for shifting towards recommendation algorithms to populate users’ feeds, including:
Encourage Meaningful Interactions
Facebook has said that users have more meaningful interactions (likes, comments, shares, clicks) on suggested posts they find interesting versus passively scrolling through brand and publisher content. Their algorithms look to serve the posts people engage with most.
Expose Users to More of Facebook
By guiding users to new Pages, Groups, accounts, and types of content, Facebook aims to increase the time spent on site and pages viewed. The more a user interacts with the platform, the more data Facebook can collect and the more ads they can show.
Build a Personalized Experience
Tailored suggestions based on your interests, habits, demographics, and location allow Facebook to deliver a unique feed filled with relevant content for each user.
Increase Ad Relevance
The better Facebook understands you through your engagement with suggestions, the more precision they have in targeting advertisements. More relevant ads typically lead to higher click-through rates.
Encourage Sharing and Virality
Suggesting timely, trending posts gives increased visibility to content more likely to go viral through shares and reactions. This content keeps users engaged in feeds.
Promote Discovery
Facebook users tend to be connected with like-minded people. Suggestions introduce accounts, views, and communities a user may not otherwise be exposed to outside their echo chamber.
Provide Useful Information
Not all suggestions are merely “clickbait.” Facebook’s algorithms aim to provide valuable local recommendations, timely news and videos, and discoveries matching users’ hobbies and interests.
Fill News Feed Gaps
When friends and followed accounts aren’t posting frequently, relevant suggestions keep the feed populated with fresh, engaging content.
Compete with Other Platforms
Personalized, algorithmic feeds are popular on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Facebook uses suggestions to emulate the addictive, machine-learning feeds that retain users on competitive sites.
Suggestion Algorithm Factors
Facebook considers hundreds of factors when selecting suggested content for your individual News Feed experience. Some of the top factors include:
Past Engagement
Facebook looks at the types of posts you’ve reacted to, clicked on, commented on, and shared to understand your interests. More suggestions will reflect your historical engagement.
Connections
Who you’re friends with and connected to helps Facebook gauge what communities and topics you care about. Some suggestions come from these networks.
Demographics
Location, age, gender, education level, and other demographic factors allow Facebook to make generalized assumptions about your potential interests.
Following
The accounts, Pages, groups, hashtags, and topics you actively follow provide a clear sign of your preferences. Facebook spots related suggestions.
Activity Outside Facebook
Sites you visit, ads you view/click outside of Facebook, pixels tracking you, and other data help inform suggestion relevancy.
Trending Content
Viral posts getting lots of engagement can appear as suggestions to capitalize on real-time spikes in popularity.
Timeliness
Facebook may suggest recent posts around breaking news, holidays, sports games, TV premieres, etc. to keep feeds current.
Localization
Nearby events, restaurants, news and hyperlocal suggestions may enter your feed based on your device’s location services.
Language
Facebook displays higher-ranking posts in languages you’re proficient in as detected by your activity and profile settings.
Pros of Suggestions
While too many suggestions in your News Feed can feel disruptive, this algorithmic content isn’t all bad. Some potential benefits include:
- Exposes you to new ideas, interests, viewpoints, and experiences you may like.
- Breaks “filter bubbles” and pushes you outside your social comfort zone.
- Surfaces timely, relevant content you may have otherwise missed.
- Keeps your feed populated with fresh posts when friends aren’t posting.
- Helps small creators, businesses, and communities gain visibility when you engage.
- Reduces the reach of businesses and Pages that “spam” low-value posts.
- Allows you to discover local restaurants, events, news, and services.
- Means you don’t have to deliberately search for topics of interest, they come to you.
Cons of Suggestions
On the other hand, excessive or irrelevant suggested content can negatively impact the user experience, including:
- Overtakes feed real estate previously occupied by posts from friends.
- Disrupts the chronological feed experience many users prefer.
- Low-quality suggestions like clickbait can clutter your feed.
- Too many advertisements or sponsored posts appear disingenuous.
- Posts can seem oddly repetitive if you aren’t interested in the topic.
- Gives Facebook even more personal data to target ads and manipulate your experience.
- Algorithms aren’t perfect and may misjudge your preferences.
- Changes without warning as Facebook experiments with new optimization tactics.
- Curating suggestions takes more effort than passively consuming a chronological feed.
The Future of Suggestions
Facebook will likely continue evolving its algorithms and suggestion strategies in the coming years. Here are some potential developments:
- More visual suggestions like Reels could dominate as video consumption grows.
- An increased emphasis on local content as location data accuracy improves.
- Suggestions tied to biometric data gathered from wearables and smart devices.
- Micro-targeted suggestions based on recent activities and context.
- Users may be able to “teach” Facebook suggestions with qualitative feedback.
- Advertisements could blend more seamlessly into algorithmic suggestions.
- Facebook may develop a distinct “Discovery Feed” separate from your main feed.
- Voice command suggestions could appear for Portal, VR, and audio-centric experiences.
While too much irrelevant content can certainly be annoying, suggestions aren’t universally bad if they expose you to new perspectives and experiences you find valuable. With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook still has an opportunity to get suggestions right, keep feeds interesting, and improve people’s lives if executed thoughtfully.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I see less suggested posts on Facebook?
You can see fewer suggested posts by snoozing recommendations, unfollowing accounts, prioritizing close friends with See First, interacting less with suggestions, and managing your News Feed preferences.
Why am I seeing Facebook suggestions from accounts I don’t follow?
You may see posts from accounts you don’t follow because Facebook’s algorithm thinks you will find them interesting or relevant based on your profile, interests, location, and other factors.
Is Facebook getting rid of the News Feed?
No, Facebook is not getting rid of the News Feed, but they are experimenting with additional feeds like a “Discovery Engine” and emphasizing Reels content more heavily. The classic News Feed will still exist.
How do I stop Facebook showing suggested posts?
You can reduce suggested posts by snoozing recommendations, unfollowing irrelevant accounts, using the “See First” feature, hiding or marking suggestions as “Not Interested”, and managing your News Feed preferences. However, you can’t eliminate them completely.
Does Facebook listen to my conversations?
There is no evidence that Facebook listens to audio or conversations to target ads or suggestions. They receive enough data from your activities, profile, location, and online behaviors to make relevant suggestions without accessing your phone’s microphone.
Conclusion
Facebook’s increased use of suggested posts to populate your feed is controversial, but designed to boost engagement and time-on-site through personalized, algorithmic content. While excessive low-quality suggestions can make Facebook less enjoyable for some, the platform believes recommending fresh, relevant discoveries improves the average user experience. With tools to prioritize friends, snooze suggestions, and provide feedback, you can strike a balance that makes your News Feed valuable.