December 19th, 2017

Facebook Continues Fighting Spam by Cracking Down on Engagement Bait

Over the past two years, we've written about how Facebook has been cracking down on clickbait headlines and on static images and play buttons designed to look like video content.

Yesterday, Facebook announced that they will be fighting engagement bait on News Feed. In response to users dismay with spammy posts, Facebook will begin demoting individual posts from users and Pages that use engagement bait.

Engagement bait is any post that goads users into interacting with likes, shares, comments, and other actions. You've likely seen engagement bait on your News Feed. For example, “LIKE this if you’re an Aries!” 

Facebook says that they are using machine learning to identify and demote different types of engagement bait. Additionally, Facebook says that they will be implementing stricter demotions for Pages that "systematically and repeatedly use engagement bait to artificially gain reach in News Feed."

For the sake of engagement on your posts and your Pages, make sure that you only share relevant and meaningful content that does not use engagement bait tactics.