Algorithms are very handy things, but sometimes nothing beats good old human intelligence. 

Taking a leaf from this book, Facebook is now asking users for feedback about how to improve the News Feed.

Q&A

According to Backchannel, Facebook is asking a random group of 600 users across the United States for their thoughts on how to improve the News Feed.

Since August 2014, this hallowed group has had access to a special version of Facebook. Here they interact with content as they normally would, then answer detailed questions about the type of content they were exposed to.

Facey feedback

The experiment has already yielded some interesting results. It confirms that users almost always rate posts and photos from close friends as the most important.

Facebook has also found that when a user "Likes" a post, it is more often an expression of a personal connection with the author, rather than necessarily endorsing the content of the post.

Many sponsored posts still don't rate that highly for users. 

Tweak time

Facebook is continuing with the project, and will presumably roll out the insights to eventually tweak the News Feed of all users. 

From a marketer's point of view, anything Facebook can do to increase the content, sponsored or otherwise, that users will engage with is a very good thing.