What the Heck Is the August Facebook News Feed Change?

"What the Heck is...?" is our new series about the most important updates and changes in social media and how it will affect YOUR goals, presence and ranking.

What is "High Quality" Content?

Facebook just announced a new change to the New Feed - a focus on showing more "High Quality" content. This follows their previous update, which focused on "Story Bump". So, what the heck is this change and what does it mean for you and your business?

Traditionally, Facebook showed users a mix of organic and paid content. Organic content was shown based on EdgeRank - a formula that took into account a user's affinity with the poster, the type of media the post was, and the time since the post was created. Paid content was either Sponsored Stories or promoted organic posts.

While paid content will still be a part of the mix, this latest update adjusts which organic content will be shown. Facebook did a large scale survey to understand what users found to be timely, relevant, interesting and shareable. They also asked about what content users would NOT like to see in their feed. They then took these learnings and implemented a new system that applies it the feed to showcase more of this "High Quality" content. This has resulted in more interactions and fewer hides.

What Should You Do About it

Here are some steps you can do right now to take advantage of this change:

1. Before you post content, think about why and how users would interact with it. Would you, if you saw it in your feed? Remember that interactions breed more interactions.
2. Look through your own News Feed and see what types of content that other posts with high engagement have. In most cases, you will see that they are largely image-based, with short amounts of text, and clear calls to action. Start to mirror those in your own posts
3. Look at individual post metrics for your posts. Which posts are interacted with most? Are the interactions likes, comments or shares? Do the posts get hidden? Use this data to refine your posting strategy.
4. Use targeting options to do A/B testing of post content. Post the same image in one post targeted at men and in another post targeted at women. Vary the copy. See which performs better. Repeat the same process in reverse, so you can eliminate male and female biases.

Let us know what type of content, posts, and styles is working best for you below.