EdgeRank is an algorithm that Facebook uses to determine which relevant and wanted ‘stories’ (posts and apps) get placed in peoples newsfeeds. Understanding the algorithm has become critical for businesses so that they truly grasp how Facebook is to work. Confusion continues to surround it, but thanks to one of my favourite bloggers in the US, Jon Loomer, who generously shares a lot of information about how Facebook works (including EdgeRank), I regularly refer to his posts (and information from others) on how we can learn how to unravel its complexities.
Naturally Facebook has every right to want to protect its investment in its social platform, the biggest in the world, and second most visited site next to Google. Many businesses are very frustrated that not all of their content reaches their fans, but let’s face it; delivering content to every billion users on Facebook, every minute of every day is near impossible/implausible. Look at it another way: you pay for an ad to go into a newspaper. You have NEVER been guaranteed that every reader is going to see that ad in the newspaper. Same as Facebook. Like an ad, your content has to be valuable and interesting. Or, consider the business pages you follow – do you truly enjoy and/or engage with every one of the posts you see in your newsfeed? I sincerely doubt you do.
People login to Facebook to check their newsfeed. This is a summary of what’s been happening recently among their friends (and pages they like) on Facebook. In essence, every action that persons friend takes on their newsfeed is a potential newsfeed story. Facebook calls these actions “Edges”. That means whenever a friend posts a status update, comments on another status update, tags a photo, joins a fan page, or RSVP’s to an event it generates an “Edge,” and a story about that Edge might show up in the user’s personal newsfeed. So, as it is overwhelming and impossible to post every story, EdgeRank predicts how interesting a story will be to each user. The algorithm is used to trawl people’s newsfeeds and see what post has been the most popular/top-ranked, i.e. by number of likes and comments.
The basic details surrounding the algorithm are as such:
Very briefly:
- affinity – how connected are you to the Edge
- weight – comments over likes
- edge – the older the news, the quicker it loses Edge ‘points’; time dependent on when someone logs in to their newsfeed and what story is top-ranking at that one point in time.
To simplify this further, the elements of this algorithm is centrally focused around:
- personal interaction of the follower with a set of different Facebook posts – how often the followers likes or comments on a post, and whether you typically engage with one type of post, i.e. photos, quotes, etc.
- network reaction – a group of Facebook users reactions to one specific post – the more people engage with this post the more likely you are to see it in the newsfeed.
EdgeRank is like a credit rating: it’s invisible, it’s important, it’s unique to each user, and no one other than Facebook knows exactly how it works.
Every interaction within Facebook has an EdgeRank score, relative to each individual fan. There are a wide variety of factors that are taken into consideration when examining each of the three main components. Facebook analyses each of these factors and how it assesses each business page varies, as content delivered from each page and followers’ behaviour of each page varies.
Negative Feedback is also weighted and can hurt the performance of the post, especially pages that receive high levels of negative feedback.
What is most important to focus on is what will build the EdgeRank of the interaction. Building the EdgeRank of an interaction boils down to driving ENGAGEMENT. Brands are starting to figure out what works with their audience and providing content that meets their needs. And that’s what it gets down to. Great content. Think about what you are posting. Is it interesting? Is it of value? Would you ‘like’ or comment on the post if it was dull, boring, non-emotive, same-old?
Timing is also important. Great content can perform very well, but can perform even better with excellent timing. You need to test different forms of content, i.e. tips, tricks, updates, photos, links to websites, videos, links, contests, quotes and then further test sending the posts at different times of the day. Rewrite your posts another way – test different language and expressions, ask questions. Seek to get a response. You will not be rewarded for selling all the time. Understanding your target market and the demographics of your current followers is also important. Are they mums, 9 – 5 workers, tradespeople… when are they usually engaging with you? What are they responding to the most?
Whilst it pays to keep an eye on your competition and see what type of engagement they are getting with their posts, this is not a license to copy them or be same-same. Be true to your business and lead the way with your own followers. They like your business page and want you to engage them. So don’t rely on your competitor to provide the fodder for your posts.
Expect to see the things that Facebook use in the newsfeeds to assess viability of the post to change on a constant basis. Remember to focus on what works for YOUR business. Test, trial, learn and leverage.