FaceBook EdgeRank and Why it Matters to Social Media Marketers
Facebook admits that only 17% of the average page’s fans see its updates. To maximize your page’s impact and return on investment you need to reach a much higher percentage of your fans. To do this you need to understand how Facebook decides who sees what.
Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank to grade every single post you make. EdgeRank is the social media giant’s version of Google’s PageRank. Luckily, EdgeRank is a much simpler and more elegant system than Google’s opaque and ever-changing algorithms.
EdgeRank uses three factors to calculate the rank of your posts: Affinity, EdgeWeight and Recency.
Affinity
Affinity is a measure of how close you are to a person on Facebook. The more you interact with someone, or with a page, the more likely you are to see their content in your newsfeed.
Affinity is a one-way measurement. Liking and commenting on someone else’s posts does not mean that they are more likely to see your stuff.
The only way of raising your Affinity is to get your fans to interact with your updates and your page. Any interaction they make means that they are more likely to see your content in the future.
Only one or two percent of fans visit a page when they see a post in their newsfeed. Posts that encourage your fans to visit your page (for special offers, contents, etc) raise affinity.
- Ask questions that are easy and quick to answer.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for shares and likes (not with every post).
- Share multiple updates on themed days (for example, Food Thursday). This boosts the number of fans that see your updates and encourages them to visit your page to see all the updates from the day.
- Analyse your previous successful posts to identify times, themes and formats that work for your fans. Wash, rinse and repeat!
EdgeWeight
EdgeWeight is the initial ranking that Facebook gives to a post. It depends on your page’s overall EdgeRank and the type of content the update contains. Photos, videos and links have the highest EdgeWeight.
Recently it looks like Facebook has increased the Edge Weight of photos in response to rivalry from Pinterest. Photos are becoming the most important tool in social media. The internet is becoming a visual medium.
EdgeWeight is not a fixed value. A large number of comments, likes and shares increase the Edge Weight of a post. Posts that receive a quick response from fans get an EdgeWeight boost and are placed on more of your fans newsfeeds. Therefore a core of loyal engaged users is vital to boosting your overall EdgeRank. You can also boost a post’s EdgeWeight by Tweeting about it as soon as it goes live.
Boost EdgeWeight to increase the visibility of an individual Facebook post:
- Include a photograph in your post as images have the highest EdgeWeight
- Calls to Action: Ask a question or encourage comments, shares and likes to boost early interaction and increase EdgeWeight.
- Encourage your fans to share their images on your page: This boosts your page’s EdgeWeight and Affinity.
Recency
Recency is a simple measure of how old your post is. Older posts lose EdgeRank at a rate determined by Facebook. Since the Timeline came in posts are losing their effectiveness much faster. New posts now go stale within hours rather than days.
A Facebook page campaign now needs to be posting at least every day to be successful. Some advertising agencies are even advising up to
That said, there is no reason not to experiment with different posting frequency. Try posting a set of related images one by one as part of a themed day, or posting a series of links to related articles. There is an easy way of monitoring whether you are over-posting. Check your page stats and see if the number of page unlikes rises when you post multiple times.
Experiment with formats, content types and posting frequency and never be afraid to try something new. Never forget that the basis for success on Facebook is quality, targeted content.
