What are social networking algorithms and how do they work?

2.34 billion people around the world use social networks, according to the Statist. The forecast is that by 2020 this number reaches almost 3 billion users, which is half of the world’s population. This number is very important and tells us a lot about the path we are going when we talk about internet and connectivity. There is no doubt that, along with Google, social networks were one of the greatest inventions of the internet. Everybody uses, all the time - they've become part of our routine. And the reason is one: with so many users on the network, it is inevitable that today's biggest social networks will create new ways to enhance the user experience (and obviously increase their profits). And that's where the subject of this text comes in: the algorithms of social networks.

Social networking algorithms are a controversial subject. A social network algorithm, in general terms, is a formula for prioritizing posts on social networks according to relevance to the user, abandoning the idea of ​​showing only more recent posts. Want to see your algorithm on Facebook in action?  Just watch your news feed in "Top Stories" mode. There, you can see exactly what content Facebook considers relevant to you. The algorithms basically have 3 rules:

1-    Who posted the content? That is, what is User Interaction with content (if you have previously commented, liked, or shared posts from a page / user)

2-    Content popularity (yes, content with more engagement has more priority in the news feed)

3-    Content type (photos and videos are more likely to appear in the news feed)

With this data in hand, social networks that use algorithms define which content will first be shown to the user.