Pages that repeatedly share ‘engagement bait’ posts will see more significant drops in reach.
Starting this week, Facebook is going to demote spammy posts from people and Pages that goad people into interacting with likes, shares, comments, and other actions.
‘Engagement bait’ is tactic that seeks to take advantage of Facebook’s News Feed by boosting engagement in order to get greater reach. For instance, posts that expect you to “LIKE this if you’re an Aries!”
In a bid to foster more authentic engagement, Facebook has reviewed and categorized hundreds of thousands of posts to inform a machine learning model that can detect different types of engagement bait. Posts that use this tactic will be shown less in News Feed.
Over the next few weeks, Facebook will also implement stricter demotions for Pages that systematically use engagement bait as a tactic to artificially gain reach in News Feed.
Publishers and other businesses that are repeatedly using engagement bait will witness a drop in reach of such posts as well as of their Page.
“We will roll out this Page-level demotion over the course of several weeks to give publishers time to adapt and avoid inadvertently using engagement bait in their posts. Moving forward, we will continue to find ways to improve and scale our efforts to reduce engagement bait,” it said in a blog post.
However, genuine posts that ask people for help, advice, or recommendations, for instance circulating an urgent requirement for a blood donor, or asking for cooking tips, will not be adversely impacted by the update.
