- 1. Understanding EdgeRank How to Make Facebooks Ranking System
Work for You E-Book
2. Understanding EdgeRank2 What is Facebook EdgeRank? When Did
Ranking Become So Important? Why EdgeRank Matters How to Make
EdgeRank Work for You 1 2 3 4 Contents 3. Understanding EdgeRank3
EdgeRank is an algorithm developed by Facebook to determine what is
shown and how it is ranked in Facebook users News Feeds. EdgeRank
is also used to refer to the rank of a brand/page, and to the
specific ranking of a particular edge (see below). The formula that
dictates an item, connection, or a brands EdgeRank is as follows,
courtesy of EdgeRank Checker: Lets break that formula down Sum of
Edges: An edge is an occurrence of some kind of Facebook; a status
update, a posted photo, a like, share, etc. The sum of those is
everything that anyone connected to a certain user does. Affinity
(u): This is basically the quality of the connection between a
brand or another user and the individual in question. For our
purposes today, were going to focus on how this affects brands. The
user and the brands relationship is affected by how often and in
what ways the user engages with the edges generated by the brand.
Weight (w): An edges weight is essentially Facebooks determination
of that storys importance to Facebook users. Everything has a
weight, whether its posted content photo, video, link, status or an
action by a user such as a like or comment. Time Decay (d): How
long it has been since the edge was originally generated. Newer
actions or content are the most valuable, ensuring that the news in
your feed is as current as possible, while still being interesting
to you. What is Facebook EdgeRank? 4. Understanding EdgeRank4
Shortly after Facebooks mid-September update to its EdgeRank
algorithm, marketers began to notice a disturbing trend: their
reach numbers seems to be taking a nosedive. The same techniques
that had yielded good reach numbers the previous week were suddenly
showing lackluster analytics. What experts quickly figured out was
that the tweaks made to Facebooks EdgeRank algorithm had caused the
system to judge that fewer fans cared to see their posts than was
previously thought. A company called EdgeRank Checker confirmed
these suspicions by studying their clients pages, finding that
pages in their database were seeing 26% reach on average before the
September 20, 2012 update, and 19.5% after. For those keeping
score, thats a 6.5% decline in reach. Not long after these results
were posted, a Facebook ad rep contacted the company with the
following explanation: While overall engagement should remain
relatively consistent as a result of our most recent optimization,
your organic reach may be impacted. The more engaging your content,
the lower the impact this optimization should have on your reach
going forward. Before 9/20 26% 19.5% After 9/20 0% 10% 20% 15% 20%
25% 30% MEDIAN REACH CHANGE (9/20) edgerankchecker.com When Did
Ranking Become So Important? 5. Understanding EdgeRank5 Facebooks
EdgeRank plays a huge part in how visible a business can be on the
social media site. Visibility is crucial not only to maintaining
engagement with the followers you already have, but also to
continuing to gain new likes every day. When you create a post an
image, a video, a status update to share with your fans, the
percentage of your total fan base that see it is determined by
EdgeRank. If your post ranks highly based on the algorithm, then
more people will see it. And only those who see your post will have
the opportunity to engage with it like it, share it, comment on it.
An interesting feature of EdgeRank is that its dynamic. In other
words, the algorithm continues to re-rank your post over time
depending on how much engagement it is receiving. Beyond engagement
with people who already like your page, EdgeRank is crucial because
it also affects your possibilities for social discovery and
amplification, which are key to building a brand on Facebook.
Social discovery occurs when one of your fans shares your content
and it is seen by someone who was not previously aware of your
brand. Amplification is the phenomenon that happens when that
Facebook user then shares your content with their network, and
those connections share it with their own networks, and so on.
Those extra sets of eyes translate into more likes, and eventually
more leads for your business. Why EdgeRank Matters 6. Understanding
EdgeRank6 So now that you understand what EdgeRank is, why it is
important, and how recent changes have created new challenges, how
can you take this apparent lemon and make lemonade? Perhaps the
best and most sustainable way to ensure your posts get the most
engagement from your fans is to make them as visual as possible.
EdgeRanks weight component is based on what types of content users
tend to engage with the most. And this has by far turned out to be
photos. The chart below shows 4 different content types and their
rankings, as determined in a study by Wildfire. If you offer a
product that can be photographed, or if you have a lot of events
where youre taking photos, then you are already ahead of the game.
If your business is less visual by nature, however, theres still
plenty you can do. Whenever you start to create a post on Facebook,
ask yourself is there an image that could help to represent this?
There probably is, and if you can think of it (or create it) youll
have a much richer content that make your fans love you more, and
make EdgeRank show your posts to more of them to begin with.
Mashable even suggests taking this a step further to always use a
photo when you post, even with non-image content you wouldve posted
already. Not only should you be posing images instead of simply
text statuses, think about how you can use an image to get users
attention and put links to the content you were going to post in
the image description instead. One example: instead of posting a
video link, post a screen grab from the video as an image and link
to the video in the description. Photo Video Status Link 0% .2% .4%
1.0% .6% .8% 1.2% 1.4% 1.6% wildfireapp.com edgerankchecker.com
FACEBOOK ENGAGEMENT/FAN How to Make EdgeRank Work for You 7.
Understanding EdgeRank7 The good news to take away at the end of
the day is that the intention of the EdgeRank algorithm update was
for Facebook to ensure that the most engaging content from the most
diligent brands is getting into Facebook users news feeds. And
while youll definitely have to be more resourceful, even small
businesses can make sure they stay in the mix by continually
observing best practices and creatively posting in the most
engaging ways possible. Conclusion 8. 1110 Wayne Ave., Suite 800
Silver Spring, MD 20910 www.pagemodo.com
