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The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

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11–20 of 317 posts

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#11
post #5

There is a very simple solution for this issue. Create a Facebook Page for yourself as a brand, post links to your articles on that page, then share it from your personal Facebook page.

Do you understand enough about how the algorithm is working to be sure this solution is effective? Even if your Mom still immediately 'likes' it? What if she 'likes' your brand too, then sees all brand posts on her timeline, and still immediately likes them?

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#12
I'm pretty sure this description is wrong. My impression is facebook shows your content to a subset of friends and then classifies it based on likes received. If your mom 'like's 9/10 posts and your other friends like 3/10 posts, then 60% of your posts /are/ family content. Even if they're about mathematical theories.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#13
tl;dr, as I understand it: when family members Like your Facebook content in relative quick succession, FB apparently interprets it as a signal that it is family-specific content. I didn't see any metrics but this seems plausible.

I think I'm more of a fan of FB than the average web geek, probably because I used it at its phase of peak innocence (college years) and have since weaned myself off to the point of checking it on a less-than-weekly basis. I also almost never post professional work there, nor "friend" current colleagues. Moreover, I've actively avoided declaring familial relationships (though I have listed a few fake relationships just to screw with the algorithm). But wasn't the feature of making yourself a "brand page" and/or having "subscribers" (which don't count toward the 5,000 friend limit) supposed to mitigate this a bit? I guess I'm so used to keeping Facebook solely for personal content (and using Twitter for public-facing content) that I'm out of touch with the sharing mechanics. That, and anecdotal experience of how baby/wedding pics seems to be the most Liked/Shared content in my friend network.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#15
post #5

There is a very simple solution for this issue. Create a Facebook Page for yourself as a brand, post links to your articles on that page, then share it from your personal Facebook page.

Do you understand enough about how the algorithm is working to be sure this solution is effective? Even if your Mom still immediately 'likes' it? What if she 'likes' your brand too, then sees all brand posts on her timeline, and still immediately likes them?

I suspect that the algorithm for familial relationship boosts is no longer a factor once the content is posted under a separate Brand.

For all we know, the "mom" factor isn't weighted for things like external links. The OP is making that suggestion, but perhaps Facebook thought of that and discounts the relationship if it's (a) an external link or (b) the family member likes more than X% of posts.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#17
post #5

There is a very simple solution for this issue. Create a Facebook Page for yourself as a brand, post links to your articles on that page, then share it from your personal Facebook page.

It would be interesting if Facebook allowed personal users to access the brand tools that pages get (impressions, distribution, etc). This won't happen because facebook wants you to think everyone is seeing your posts. People would be livid if they knew just how low of a % of friends were actually viewing their stuff due to algorithmic meddling.

I think that's why there's been more and more images posted as video, to track viewership (FB shows the number of views on videos but not pictures).

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#18
This is not a problem, and I certainly hope Facebook does not fix it. Why? Because it forced the OP to narrow down his audience and show the post only to those who would enjoy it.

That's a much better experience than everyone trying to push everything they publish to you.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#19

I'm pretty sure this description is wrong. My impression is facebook shows your content to a subset of friends and then classifies it based on likes received. If your mom 'like's 9/10 posts and your other friends like 3/10 posts, then 60% of your posts /are/ family content. Even if they're about mathematical theories.

It seems like what he is claiming is that his mom instantly clicks like on everything and so the post gets gated before his other friends ever have the opportunity to indicate whether they like it.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#20

I'm pretty sure this description is wrong. My impression is facebook shows your content to a subset of friends and then classifies it based on likes received. If your mom 'like's 9/10 posts and your other friends like 3/10 posts, then 60% of your posts /are/ family content. Even if they're about mathematical theories.

But if your mom likes all of your posts, then her likes become a less predictive signal. At that point, she is almost like a bot in terms of signal value.
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