Why aren't my FB posts getting seen more?

November 2, 2024 4:21 AM

In the past few months, reactions to my posts have dropped off steeply and friends say they don't see my posts often. I want to fix that.

This may be totally fruitless, but I wanted to give it a shot. I’m writing about my personal FB page, which has helped me feel connected after moving somewhere new.

I suddenly dropped from getting maybe 20 reactions (including comments ) on a post to maybe getting 1 or two. Thought it was maybe a shadow ban but a few people said they could see mine.

Most of FB is ads and various “recommendations,” and I know that’s just the deal these days, but it’s frustrating that I’m missing posts by others (I think, based on observations)and they’re missing mine. I don’t want to ask everyone to subscribe to my feed.

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

posted by mermaidcafe to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Interact with your own post immediately- Like it, Save it, and Share it to somebody. And ask a friend to interact with your post within a couple minutes as well. Social media apps will show your post to a few people, but if it doesn’t get interactions in the views, it will be lowered in the algorithm.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:41 AM on November 2 [3 favorites]

If this is relevant, FB is hiding political posts and sharing of links in general and promoting posts with just photos and text, no link.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:43 AM on November 2 [4 favorites]

I have found it is almost impossible for me to see posts by my friends on FB over the last year. For every one post I see by someone I know, I get 10 “suggested” group posts, to the point that I don’t even bother trying. Your regular viewers are probably having the same frustrations.
posted by funkaspuck at 4:51 AM on November 2 [6 favorites]

This is Facebook by design. They want you to continue to strive and try to engage as they hide your posts more and more and more.

I won't speak to the other evils they do but the basic functioning of FB has been ruined for over a decade and sounds like it's only getting worse.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:51 AM on November 2 [4 favorites]

PIt’s a vicious circle.

If your friends don’t interact with your posts (react or comment) then the Facebook algorithm decides that they’re not interested in your posts and stops showing them. However, when they are no longer shown your posts they have no chance at all to react or comment on them, so the situation never recovers.

The algorithm makes sense if, like many people, you have 100+ Facebook friends. You probably don’t want to see every last thing that every one of them posts, so the algorithm is helping to cull it down to the ones you’re actually interested in.

Like most algorithms designed to anticipate human needs it screws things up in a whole new way, and people have to find a way to work around it. One way would be to have your friends "like" your posts just to show that they read them.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:06 AM on November 2 [1 favorite]

Facebook shows more posts in the feed from people you've interacted with, so if you message specific friends or go directly to their pages and comment on their posts, those people will be more likely to see your posts too.
posted by yarntheory at 7:02 AM on November 2 [1 favorite]

You might post a Story alerting people you have a new post whenever it pops up. This keeps people seeing your stuff more. I agree with others that the FB algorhythm is totally borked and the whole site seems to be in a death spiral.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:03 AM on November 2 [2 favorites]

I can confirm the weirdness - unlike on MeFi, where there's no need, I maintain a FB sockpocket account. One reason is to monitor what's shown from my real ID. I keep them pretty much isolated from each other, and posts from my main ID hardly ever appear in my sockpuppet feed, although we're "friends." What DOES show up occasionally in the sockpuppet are notices about me commenting on other friends' posts, which I'd rather FB didn't advertise.
posted by Rash at 7:42 AM on November 2

I have a small group of people that I like to connect with, who are on Facebook and not really active anywhere else. I'll use the search function to pull them up and view their feeds directly.

At times I've bookmarked the direct URL of someone I've wanted to follow, and used that to see their posts.
posted by gimonca at 7:55 AM on November 2

A number of people I know post links as comments to posts. And if you're writing something political - put a photo of a kid or a pet and it will get out to a lot more people. My political post with no photo and no link? Almost zero interaction. My political post with a picture of my cats, the usual amount of interaction. Sharing a political post from someone else with no additional verbiage, zero. Sharing the same with my own verbiage plus "liking" my own post, more visibility and interaction. Sorry, it's a real bummer.
posted by amanda at 8:50 AM on November 2

I use Social Fixer extension on Firefox. Cuts out all the rubbish. There's separate buttons to allow you to see only posts from friends or only posts from Groups. I encourage my friends to use it.
posted by night_train at 8:58 AM on November 2 [5 favorites]

Tell your friends to select Feeds then Friends. This changes the feed to a reverse chronological feed of your friends' posts instead of whatever the algorithm chooses for you.

Unfortunately there isn't any way to default to that view on mobile, but they can bookmark the URL of that view on desktop.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:02 AM on November 2 [3 favorites]

I do what Jacqueline does (Feeds -> Friends); it is the only tolerable way to experience FB anymore. Since it's unlikely your friends will do the same, you'll just have to post stuff they'll notice the one time the algorithm shows it to them -- preferably original photos.
posted by peachfiber at 8:09 PM on November 2 [1 favorite]

The algorithm makes sense if, like many people, you have 100+ Facebook friends. You probably don’t want to see every last thing that every one of them posts, so the algorithm is helping to cull it down to the ones you’re actually interested in.

Maybe if you have 1000 friends, but how long does it take to scroll past something? I can't imagine that people don't want to see actual content (not forwards) from people they are 'friends' with, even friends 99 and 100. Facebook just wants to push nonsense at people instead of what they want to see.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:02 PM on November 3 [1 favorite]