Have you heard about Facebook’s new “Story Bumping” feature? In early August, the company rolled out a new algorithm geared at rewarding posts that have high interaction rates but a low number of views. You may have recently noticed, looking at your News Feed, that a post that’s several hours old is appearing above more recent content. That’s Story Bumping.
Facebook changed their algorithm to push stories you haven’t seen above those you have – provided they’re getting a high number of “likes” or comments, proving relevance. How does it work? It’s eerily in touch with your browsing habits, noting how often you interact with the friend or Page in question, how many likes or shares users – and your friends in particular – have given the post, how much you’ve interacted with similar posts, and whether you tend to hide similar content.
According to Facebook’s research, prior to the introduction of this feature, people read an average of 57% of the stories in their News Feed, and didn’t scroll down far enough to view the other 43%. The Story Bumping feature led to:
• An increase to 70% of overall News Feed content being seen and read
• A 5% increase in the number of likes, comments and shares on stories from friends
• An 8% increase in likes, comments and shares on stories from Pages
How do you make this feature work for your business? You should still strive to write compelling, relevant content for your Page, and post it during prime posting hours. There are any number of theories on when this might actually be – some say 2-4PM and 11PM-1AM, some say 5-7PM – you need to consider your specific target audience and post during times you know they’ll be online and reading their News Feed. Use the feature that lets you know how many people have viewed your post – you might even want to create a spreadsheet detailing subject matter, time posted and number of views, so you can spot patterns over time. Make note of the posts that had the highest number of views, and make an effort to replicate both the time window and the quality/nature of that content if it’s outperforming your other Facebook content.
You will also want to make an effort to be actively engaged with your posts – reply to feedback and comments from fans, and stir up a conversation around your post topic, because that will increase the likelihood it will be considered “relevant” and, thus, presented to more users via Story Bumping. Your post will also move back to the top of the News Feed every time it gains a new comment, thus increasing the number of views organically – which will also help with the relevancy algorithm.
Last but not least, it’s always a good idea to actively build your number of followers – if you follow the tips above, you should find that this is a numbers game, and the more followers you have, the better your content will naturally perform.