What Does "Following" Mean on Facebook? The Ultimate Guide for 2023

As one of the central features of the world‘s largest social network, Facebook‘s "follow" functionality has major implications for how over 2.9 billion monthly active users interact with people, pages, and groups on the platform. But what exactly does following mean on Facebook, and how does it differ from friending? In this in-depth guide, we‘ll explore the ins and outs of following on Facebook from a technical and sociological perspective, including:

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How the follow feature works and its impact on the user experience
Steps to follow and unfollow accounts on Facebook
Strategies for growing a dedicated following
Privacy considerations and potential future developments for follows on Facebook

By the end, you‘ll have a comprehensive understanding of this key aspect of the Facebook ecosystem and how to navigate it effectively in 2024 and beyond.

What is "Following" on Facebook?

In simple terms, following an account on Facebook means you are subscribing to see that account‘s public posts in your News Feed. This could be an individual profile, a business page, or a group. When you follow someone, their updates will appear in your feed alongside content from your friends and other pages you‘ve liked.

However, unlike a traditional "friend" connection on Facebook, following is a one-way relationship. The account you follow will not automatically see your posts in their feed (unless your posts are set to public). They also won‘t have access to any of your profile information that‘s restricted to friends, such as your photos, "about" details, or timeline posts.

This asymmetric model was a departure from Facebook‘s original emphasis on mutual friendships when the platform launched in 2004. The company first introduced the follow feature in 2011 as a way for users to hear from people they‘re interested in but don‘t know personally, like celebrities, politicians, and journalists.

Since then, following has become a key part of how public figures, brands, and media outlets build their presence and interact with their audience on Facebook. As the company explained in a blog post announcing the feature: "We‘re focused on giving people control over what they share, so our followings are separate from our friendships. This means you can follow someone you‘re interested in without being their friend or without them following you back."

While anyone can allow others to follow their personal profile, most individuals still restrict their posts and information to friends only. For those who do allow public followers, showing up in a follower‘s News Feed depends on a variety of factors, which we‘ll dive into later.

On the flip side, pages for businesses, organizations, and public figures are automatically set to allow anyone to follow them and see their public posts without requiring approval. Facebook groups can also be set to allow anyone to follow and see posts, or limit followers to only those approved by admins and moderators.

As of 2024, over 200 million businesses use Facebook Pages, with many of the largest boasting tens of millions of followers. For example, Samsung has over 160 million page followers, while Cristiano Ronaldo has over 150 million followers of his personal athlete page. According to Facebook, two-thirds of its users visit a local business Page at least once a week.

How to Follow Accounts on Facebook

So how do you actually go about following someone on Facebook? The process is quite straightforward:

Navigate to the profile, page, or group you want to follow. You can search for it directly or find it via your News Feed, a post you were tagged in, a comment or like from the account, or Facebook‘s "People You May Know" and "Suggested for You" features.
Near the cover photo at the top of the profile/page, click the "Follow" button.
You‘ll now see a "Following" button, indicating you are subscribed to that account‘s public posts. They will start appearing in your News Feed.

To view a list of who you‘re following, go to your own profile, click the "More" tab, and select "Following" from the dropdown. Here you can sort your followed accounts by people, pages, and groups.

If you followed a personal profile, they will be notified that you followed them. However, they will not know if you later unfollow them (which you can do at any time by clicking the "Following" button again).

Page and group admins also have access to insights showing total follower counts over time and breakdowns of audience demographics like age, gender, and location. However, they don‘t see individual names of their followers unless that person has also liked the page or joined the group.

Strategies for Growing Your Facebook Following

For businesses, brands, and influencers looking to expand their organic reach on Facebook, getting more followers is critical. After all, the more followers you have, the more opportunities you have for your content to be seen, engaged with, and shared. Some proven tactics for attracting new followers include:

Post Consistently and Provide Value

To keep your existing followers engaged and attract new ones, aim to post on a regular schedule and offer content that informs, inspires, entertains, or otherwise enriches your audience‘s lives. Some of the most shareable types of Facebook posts include:

Helpful how-to‘s and tutorials
Inspirational quotes and stories
Humorous videos, GIFs, and memes
Exclusive offers or sneak peeks for your followers
Thought-provoking questions and polls
Behind-the-scenes looks at your brand
Trending news and hot takes on your industry

Of course, the specific content that will resonate best with your target audience will depend on your unique niche and brand voice. Use Facebook‘s Page Insights tools to track which posts get the most reach and engagement, and double down on that style of content in the future.

Leverage Other Channels

Make sure your Facebook page is linked prominently on your website, email newsletter, and other digital marketing channels. You can also cross-promote your Facebook presence on other social platforms by occasionally sharing posts inviting your followers there to also follow you on Facebook for exclusive content.

If you have a physical storefront or product, include a call-to-action encouraging customers to follow you on Facebook on receipts, packaging, and signage. For service-based businesses, add a link to your Facebook page in your email signature.

Engage With Your Audience and Other Pages

Building an engaged community on Facebook requires more than just posting your own content. Also dedicate time to interacting with other pages and individual followers by liking, commenting, and sharing their posts when relevant.

Participating in discussions in Facebook groups related to your niche is another great way to provide value, establish your expertise, and gain exposure to potential new followers. Just be sure to abide by each group‘s rules regarding promotion.

When your existing followers tag their friends on your page or mention you in their own posts, be sure to react and reply to keep the conversation going. These interactions send positive signals to Facebook‘s algorithm, increasing the chance your future posts will be shown in your followers‘ feeds.

Collaborate With Other Creators

Partnering with complementary brands and influencers in your space for co-branded content is a powerful way to get your page in front of a whole new audience. Some ideas for collaborated posts include:

Hosting a joint Q&A session or video interview on each other‘s pages
Running a co-sponsored contest or giveaway where users must follow both accounts to enter
Doing an account "takeover" where you create posts for another brand‘s page for a day (and vice versa)
Regularly sharing and tagging each other‘s content to cross-pollinate your audiences

Just be sure to choose partners whose target demographic and values align with your own to ensure any new followers you gain are likely to be interested in your page long-term.

Promote Your Page With Facebook Ads

For businesses wanting to quickly scale their Facebook following, investing in paid ads can be an effective strategy. With Facebook‘s robust targeting abilities, you can create campaigns aimed at users who are likely to be interested in your brand based on their demographics, interests, and online behavior.

Through tools like lookalike audiences, you can even show your ads to users who share characteristics with your existing followers and customers, thus reaching people who are statistically more likely to follow your page.

Organic posts can also be "boosted" with a paid promotion to reach more of your followers and their friends. According to a Databox survey, 70% of marketers said this tactic was moderately to extremely effective for growing their Facebook following.

Just be sure to set a clear goal and budget for your paid campaigns, and track your results so you can optimize your targeting and creative over time.

Understanding the Facebook Algorithm

Of course, getting someone to follow your page is just the first step. For your posts to actually make an impact, they also need to be seen by your followers in their News Feeds. But with the average user potentially seeing thousands of posts from friends and pages each day, Facebook uses a complex algorithm to determine which content gets prioritized.

While the specifics of the algorithm are a closely guarded secret, Facebook has shared that it takes into account thousands of different signals to predict which posts will be most valuable to each individual user based on their past behavior on the platform. The four main ranking factors are:

Inventory – The volume of all posts available to display
Signals – Characteristics of a post such as content type, recency, and engagement it‘s received
Predictions – How likely a user is to interact with the post based on their history
Overall Score – A value assigned based on the first three factors that determines a post‘s order in the feed

In general, posts that generate a lot of engagement (likes, comments, shares) in a short period of time are favored by the algorithm and shown to a higher percentage of a page‘s followers. Facebook also gives preference to posts that encourage meaningful social interactions and come from accounts that a user frequently engages with.

On the flip side, clickbait headlines, posts with spammy links, or content users often hide or report tend to be penalized by the algorithm and will be shown to fewer followers. Consistency in posting is also key, as pages that go dormant for weeks at a time may have their reach throttled.

To maximize the chance your posts are prioritized in your followers‘ feeds:

Craft compelling headlines, photos, and preview text that grab attention and incentivize engagement
Ask questions and use calls-to-action that invite comments, likes, and shares
Post when your followers are most likely to be on Facebook (check Page Insights for peak times)
Experiment with Facebook‘s latest features like Stories and Reels which may be rewarded with more prominence
Avoid any content that could be flagged as spam, clickbait, or inauthentic engagement bait

Privacy Considerations With Facebook Following

Allowing people to follow your personal profile or page comes with some important privacy implications to keep in mind:

Your public posts can be seen by anyone, even if they don‘t have a Facebook account. They may also show up in search engine results.
Even if you delete a public post, someone could have taken a screenshot before you removed it.
Followers you‘re not friends with won‘t see posts or information you‘ve restricted to "friends only," but they can still tag you in their own posts or comments.
Page and group admins can see an overview of their audience demographics, but not names of individual followers.

If you have concerns about who is following you, Facebook offers several tools to manage your audience:

From your follower list, you can click the three dots next to any individual follower and select "remove" to force them to unfollow you without notifying them. You can also block a follower entirely.
In your page settings, you can disable the ability for people to tag and link to your page in their own posts.
For personal profiles, you can change your general privacy settings to only allow friends (not public followers) to see your posts and information.

As public discourse on Facebook‘s role in the spread of misinformation and political polarization has grown in recent years, the company has made efforts to give users more control over who they follow and what content they see.

For example, a "Why am I seeing this post?" feature was introduced to give users more context into how the algorithm ranks content in their feed, along with options to unfollow or snooze accounts. An improved "Quality Filter" was also launched for pages to help admins automatically hide offensive comments and spam from followers.

Still, critics argue that Facebook‘s core business model, which relies on maximizing time-on-site and engagement to generate ad revenue, inherently incentivizes the promotion of sensational and divisive content that confirms users‘ existing beliefs. By allowing users to curate their feed through who they choose to follow, some worry Facebook can create polarized "filter bubbles" where followers are only exposed to one side of an issue.

As Facebook continues to grapple with these challenges, many predict the platform will need to re-evaluate the follow feature and algorithm to better balance user autonomy with responsible content moderation and exposure to diverse perspectives. Potential future developments could include:

Improved tools for users to actively shape their feed and discover content outside their usual purview
More granular privacy controls for profiles, pages, and groups to manage their followers
Algorithmic tweaks to reduce the reach of accounts and posts that repeatedly share disinformation
Expanded transparency around how the algorithm ranks and recommends content to different users
Increased support and monetization opportunities for creators who want to build a following on the platform

As the digital ecosystem evolves, understanding how Facebook‘s follow feature functions – and how to leverage it mindfully – will remain essential for anyone looking to build community and expand their influence on the world‘s largest social network.