The Secrets Behind Facebook

We all remember when we first got Facebook and the difficult time we had getting started. But a recent study done, by The Daily Beast, shows that Facebook has a few secrets about how they choose what goes on users news feeds.

In the end they found 10 secrets about how Facebook chooses who and what to put into news feeds.

1. Facebook has a bias against newcomers. Those who are new to Facebook have a hard time showing up on their friends' news feeds. Their invisibility only changes when people start interacting with them.

2. Facebook has a Catch-22. Like I said before to start showing up new users need interaction with other users but how will they know to interact if you're invisible? They obviously won't know to interact with you unless you tell them to.

3. The Velvet Rope: "Top News". The "top news" choice on Facebook's news feed doesn't show every post that your friends have made. Obviously it's not all exciting "news" and Facebook doesn't want it's users to get bored so Facebook chooses what is top news. It's not how much activity users have but the type of activity.

4. "Most Recent" news is censored as well. Users think that when they click this option in their news feed they're getting all of their friends who have posted the most recently. Not true. Facebook still chooses what news to put in the "most recent" news feed.

5. Stalking won't up your popularity in the news feed. Users, trying to get noticed by other users by being all over their page does absolutely no good. It doesn't make you show up in their news feed anymore than it would if you didn't stalk their page.

6. Having friends stalk your page does help out your popularity on others news feed. If other users click on your links, photos and such then you'll start showing up in not only their news feed but your other friends as well.

7. Links over status updates help users gain popularity. Posting links is more engaging then status updates and therefore they show up more frequently than status updates. The reason for this is that links bring up user engagement and that results in more time spent on Facebook.

8. Photos and Videos beat out links. Users are more likely to click on a thumbnail photo or video rather than a link. Facebook wants more user engagement and so the more clicks the better.

9. Comments on your posts help your popularity. If you post something that in turn is commented on a lot you're more likely to pop up more in the news feed.

10. Facebook is really just like high school. The popular crowd on Facebook, a.k.a. the people with the most friends, hold a lot of power to who shows up on different users news feeds. The more friends you interact with, that in turn have a lot of friends, the better chance you have of showing up on users news feeds.

For someone who has never considered how Facebook chooses what to post in users' news feed, or even the fact that there are algorithms they use to decide, this study is very eye opening. It is also helpful for those who are working to create a brand for themselves and have a wide reach of who sees them.

So post pictures, links, video and anything else that will generate comments. Get as many people to interact with your page as possible and before you know it you too can be one of the popular people.