How Mexican Beer Brand Estrella Jalisco Gamed Facebook’s Algorithm for a Good Cause
It’s no secret, Facebook is a bubble governed by a secretive algorithm. Our perception of the world, entire reputations even, are built and destroyed through what Facebook deems right to show us. The good news, however, is that you, me, all of us, can still have a positive impact. In Mexico, Estrella Jalisco, a local beer brand, launched the “Share for Good” initiative that helped turn around the negative results generated by Facebook’s search algorithm. Before the initiative kicked off, all of Facebook search results for “Mexicans are” were bringing derogatory words. Just six weeks later, the “Share for good” initiative had such an impact that all results from the same “Mexican are” query were now returning positive results, showing Mexicans as inspiring, creative, passionate and caring.
Together with their AOR, David the Agency, Estrella Jalisco, started creating content for their cause, content that highlighted the best qualities of Mexican culture and people. They also launched over 25 Facebook Pages, 20 Facebook groups and over 20 websites to share the content they created and spread the word. Two weeks after launch, the main Facebook Page for the initiative had already reached over 170,000 people and generated over 15,000 engagements. Yonathan Bendesky, senior brand director for Anheuser-Busch, Mexican imports, explained: “We didn’t know if it was going to work, but we just loved the idea and felt like we had to do something about it. The amazing thing about this is just how far a little good can go.”
