I decided to look into Edgerank as I have noticed I am not getting a very high reach percentage of fans. I discovered Facebook made it sound really cool by saying their algorithm referred to as EdgeRank is the sum of Edges. Wow I am sure Bono is jealous. Not only that but each edge is made up of “affinity“, “weight” and “time delay“. Shit here we go again as if Google wasn’t bad enough, anyways lets break it down and see if it makes more sense.
So everything on facebook has an Edge, thats a great word for your status updates, comments, likes and shares, any reaction at all on facebook is calculated. Edgerank then rates each based on importance to the fan. Comments, etc with the highest EdgeRank will go to the top of the News Feed.
So hows it calculated? Whats Affinity, weight and time delay got to do with it?
Well here goes….Time delay is how long the comment or staus updates has been alive, the newer the more important obviously, why? well this keeps the posts fresh. Weight, this is the involvement in the comment or status update a “comment” is going to rank more than a “like” why becuase people get more involved when writing a comment. Put simple when somebody takes the time to write a comment that’s worth more than a simple click of a like button. And lastly “Affinity” well affinity means the amount of interaction between each fan and your newsfeed. The more of an inter-reaction the more the affinity. So the more you encourage your fans to leave comments, likes and share your newsfeeds, preferriable all three through out your newsfeeds, then the more you can influence a fans affinity.
Then Edgerank mash all that together and filter each fan’s newsfeed to only show the top-ranked stories for that particular fan, hide all the comments that are boring ie the lowest interaction or edgerank……..and that’s why only 7% of your Facebook fans see your status updates……………. Tad Tah!
There is a randomising algorithm thrown in for good measure as Facebook didn’t like the predictabilityof it all.
Now most peoples knee-jerk reaction is to use Facebook ads to acquire more new fans. But if you already have a decent fan base, it makes more sense to first focus on interacting with the fans you have got and growing your reach than acquiring new ones. Nuture what you have got.
How can I optimize my fan page for EdgeRank?
Write your content so your fans leave more likes and comments its that simple.
Take a look at your average update, see if they engage the user, if not turn your update into questions that compel your fans to engage. I have personally found that really good images work even better when put with a question, its a visual thing.
Here’s some examples of turning you comments into engaging questions for you fans to leave comments:
- “Click ‘like’ if you’re excited that we just released our…………………”
- “Fill-in-the-blank: All I want for Mothers day is ___. Our latest Mothers day special is X.”
- “Yes/No: I like dark chocolate. We just announed a new brand of …………”
- “On a scale of 1-10, I think kenny is a great president. Watch this video of our …………”
All those likes and comments will increase the Affinity Score between each fan and your page, boosting how many fans see your status updates in their newsfeed.
Talk to webworks.ie if you want to generate Facebook Aps with email opt in forms