Facebook recently launched Facebook Journalism to collaborate with the news industry. They also released News Feed Publisher Guidelines…

The News Feed Publisher Guidelines are designed to provide an overview of News Feed: how it works, the values it operates by, the policies Facebook enforces, the signals we look for when ranking stories, and the storytelling tools Facebook offers to help your content reach the right audience.

They have created a set of News Feed Publisher Principles — three basic, high-level guideposts to keep in mind when sharing content to News Feed. These principles are:

1. People on Facebook value meaningful, informative stories = Publishers should ideally focus on what they do best; making the important and meaningful stories interesting to their audience.
2. People on Facebook value accurate, authentic content- Publishers should focus on posting accurate, authentic content.
3. People on Facebook value standards for safe, respectful behavior- Publishers should follow the Community Standards. Check the page for the latest updates and additions.

Every time you open Facebook, News Feed goes through a set of four steps to answer the question: Which stories are likely to matter most to your readers?

News Feed is an algorithm — meaning, it’s a formula or set of steps for solving a problem. These are the four essential steps of the News Feed algorithm:

1. Inventory- What stories have been posted by friends and publishers?
2. Signals – Who posted this story?
3. Predictions- How likely are you to comment on this story?
4. Score- Relevancy Score- We use all of the consolidated signals to develop a relevancy score — a number that represents how interested we think users will be in that story.

This new initiative enables the publishing professional to better target likely readers for engagement with you.

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