Facebook Lessens News Feed Impact Of “Hide” Button Clicks By Active Hiders

A shift in the way that some "hides" will factor into the News Feed algorithm may affect certain metrics within Facebook Insights.

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Facebook has recently clarified a change in the way that the “hide” feature works and how it may affect your page. It was a small change geared towards users who are heavy users of the hide button and typically hide the majority of posts. The hide button is a strong algorithm indicator in what not to show on the News Feed. When these users hide everything, they end up missing a good bit of content they’d actually like.

The new shift will depreciate the hide signal for those users who err on the side of hide. This means that these users will begin to see more stories as their specific hide input isn’t as strong as it previously was. In short, you won’t be able to hide from content, and a subset of users will now be delivered more content.

Hides

So what does this mean for brands? Since a new group of folks will now see more content, they’ll see posts that they would have missed previously. That’s great for brand Pages. However, these rampant “hiders” now exposed to new content may boost the number of hidden posts within Insights. Have no fear, though — overall, Facebook doesn’t expect Pages to see any significant distribution changes with this update, though you may see some red flags fly in the form of hidden post metrics.

For more information, see the official post from Facebook.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Finn
Contributor
Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides world-class social media and search marketing services and web & application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 10+ years and specializes in Digital Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.

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