Will Cathcart, Facebook's product manager for News Feed, uses Yoda's dislike for the Empire to explain which posts get filtered out as spam on news feeds.
(Credit: Donna Tam/CNET)Facebook's been under a lot of scrutiny lately to explain why some brands' posts haven't been reaching as many users as usual, so it brought in the big guns to shed some light -- Yoda.
Facebook Product Manager Will Cathcart channeled the fabled figure to explain how the network's algorithm, called EdgeRank, works to keep irrelevant content off a users' feed. If Yoda continually tells Facebook that he doesn't want to see updates from the death star, the algorithm makes sure he won't.
"What would Yoda do if he sees this story," Cathcart said at a press conference Facebook held today after accusations surfaced that the social network was slighting brands with its algorithm.
Cathcart explained that what News Feed posts pop up depend on several factors -- the user's reaction to the post's publisher, other people's reactions to the specific posts, and what type of story the post is. When it comes to mobile, Facebook also considers what kind of content is best for a device. If a user has a feature phone, Facebook figures that the user won't want to see photos and puts less importance on showing those posts.
Additionally, Facebook did a major tweak in September and started factoring in how likely the user, or Yoda, would complain about the post. Cathcart said this changed which posts were seen drastically, but while some brands saw less engagement, others saw more.
This fluctuation spurred some discussion among brands about how this affects their reach, or how many of their fans actually see their posts.
One way to sidestep the algorithm is for brands to pay for a Promoted Post -- those posts land at the top of the news feeds. The whole process has led to allegations about a connection between the evolving algorithm and Promoted Posts.
Matt Idema, Facebook's director of monetization product marketing, said the company's goal is to make sure brands, particularly small brands, can publish quality content that fans want to see. This was the idea behind promoted posts, Idema said.
He said Promoted Posts was meant to be a simplified advertising tool for the "millions of small business Pages posting to Facebook everyday," who don't have sophisticated tools like larger companies have.
The Promoted Post issue came to a head when billionaire Mark Cuban said this week that he's taking his brand, the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, and moving their social media focus to other networks.
Mark Cuban made some comments this week that lead to a discussion of Facebook's Pages post algorithm.
(Credit: From Flickr user mil8)Cathcart said his reaction to the recent criticism is that Facebook is focused on helping businesses produce more quality content so that they can reach more fans. New products like Pages Feed, Close Friends and Games Feed are a result of that, he said. These separate news feeds are feeds where Facebook's relevancy doesn't apply, allowing users to access a full flood of Pages posts, status updates from their closest friends and all posts from all the games they follow.
Additionally, the company is working on creating more tools for businesses to track which posts do well with their fans, so they can change their content according.
Update, 1:31 p.m. PT: Updated with more information.
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