Facebook is listening, but how can you make yourself heard?

Understanding the complex and mysterious algorithms used by Facebook has become a holy grail for advertisers and casual users alike.

Since the advent of the ‘News Feed’ feature on Facebook, where selected pages are pushed into our direct view,  the way to increase the visibility of the right users has been a difficult task both for the online behemoth, which earns money from targeting its advertising effectively, and advertisers that pay to be seen.

According to a small-scale experiment by Thomas E. Weber, Facebook somewhat imitates life by giving more value to the actions of already ‘popular kids’, as people with large networks (600 friends or more) will appear more in the ‘News Feed’ of their friends than others.

Advertisers may also be interested to learn that priority is given to posts that attract comments, as well as links, photos and videos, over plain text status updates.

With the much discussed potential of online video advertising, as well as the recent study by Hewlett-Packard on “Twitter influence“,  this study is a tiny but useful step in understanding how best to be heard over the din of online voices.

It also provides an answer to the question burning on the minds of so many users: ‘stalking’ other friends won’t get you noticed.

Visit The Daily Beast to read Weber’s findings in full.