Facebook fighting a war against clickbaiting posts

Facebook will this week begin demoting news feed posts from people and pages that use clickbaiting to get greater reach.

In what it describes as an effort to promote more meaningful and authentic conversations on the platform, Facebook staff have detected different types of clickbaiting – or in social media lingo, “engagement baiting” – to show spammy and sensational content less on the news feed. But the clampdown will exclude posts that ask people for help, advice, or recommendations.

Facebook warns that business pages and publishers that use engagement baiting will get less engagement, and more significant drops in reach if they repeatedly use the tactic.

As a result, pages should continue to focus on posting relevant and meaningful stories that do not use engagement bait tactics.

To learn more about clickbaiting and how to avoid using it on Facebook guidelines.