We’re all aware of advertorials in magazines and newspapers, and of native advertising on YouTube with your favourite video bloggers selling out to promote a product, or BuzzFeed lists that are product or service focused as a subtle advert and anyone with a small business that is savvy in paid advertising on Facebook knows that the less it looks like an ad and the more it looks like content the more people will interact and drive up virility… but is Facebook applying marketing algorithms and filters to regular users day to day status updates? Will more of your friends see your post if it is about a great deal at Coles on canned soup, or if it’s about little Suzie’s dance rehearsal?

I post a few times a day to Facebook, with a friends list of 1,300 odd, and admin of 8 pages with followings between 500 and 16,700. If I post my own political opinion on a matter (a frequent occurrence) or link to a news article, it generally receives a handful of likes (below 10 usually) and a couple of comments, within a 12 hour window from posting. When yesterday I saw a consumer level 3D printer in Officeworks I posted the following to Facebook with the text “Officeworks sells 3D printers! I’m nerding out”, in the nearly 24 hours since it has steadily received a stream of like and comments unlike other (less commercial in nature) posts, I mean I’ve posted cross species animal cuteness videos with vague and alluring comments like “OMG This is the best thing ever, I can’t believe this! Cuteness overload” that received less attention.

Is this Facebook pushing commercial posts into the newsfeed more than non-commercial or is by highschool friend I’ve not seen in years, my stalker and my second cousin as excited by consumer level 3D printing as I was and just totally uninterested by the news?

For now I can only speculate, but this post was not one that I thought would attract virtually any attention…