I know we’ve all wondered at some point or another why certain things show up in our news feeds as well as what information about us shows up most often for others. Facebook is still staying tight-lipped about their algorithms, but the Daily Beast came up with their own experiment to see what patterns they could crack, and it turns out Facebook is all one big popularity contest – who knew?
For example, it’s commonly assumed that what appears in your Top News feed is aggregated content from the friends you interact with/visit most while your Most Recent news feed shows you every update from all of your friends in reverse chronological order – neither of which is true. For example, the Facebook study found that there is a little-used setting under “Edit Options” in the Most Recent news feed that caps the number of friends that appear. Being the Facebook fans we are here at M/C/C, we’ve summarized the most important things you should take away from the Facebook study’s findings:

· Personal: Shared links to external content hold more clout than, “I ate a sandwich for lunch today. Again.”
Professional: Use your Facebook page as a platform for establishing thought leadership by sharing links to news that’s relevant to your industry and audience. Bonus points if you were an expert source for the article. In addition, Facebook should be contributing to your website traffic, not taking away from it. Make sure to direct your fans to new, relevant points of interest on your site.
· Personal: posting videos and photos increases a person’s chances of appearing in Most Recent AND Top News feeds.
Professional: Remember those videos you created for your online advertising campaign or the professional photos you had taken for you latest product brochure? Make the most of your marketing budget and boost your company’s Facebook profile by repurposing them on your Facebook page.
· Personal: comments on items you post increase your overall visibility.
Professional: Be relevant and engaging in what you post to incite conversation on your Facebook page.