by
Rachel Cummins
| Jun 05, 2011
Edgerank is an algorithm (a type of formula for computers) created by Facebook that determines the visibility of a post by an individual or brand amongst that individual or brands’ friends or fans. As far as marketers with Facebook pages are concerned it is the magic formula that decides which of your posts your fans will see and in what order. Get it right, and you will enjoy great exposure and engagement with your customers via Facebook. Get it wrong and, well you won’t get much out of your Facebook presence at all!
How does Facebook Edgerank work?
There are three factors that decide your Facebook Edgerank score: Affinity, Time and Weight. ‘Affinity’ refers to the relationships that you are building on Facebook. The more your fans have interacted with you, the higher the affinity score is (and the better the Edgerank). ‘Time’ relates to the regularity of posting; so the less you post messages the lower your Facebook Edgerank score will be. Lastly, ‘weight’ is about how popular your posts are with everyone, so that takes into consideration the Likes, Comments and Shares. Again, the more you get, the better the Edgerank. Incidentally, comments matter more than Likes when it comes to Edgerank.
Why does Edgerank matter?
As a brand, when you post something on Facebook, you want as many people as possible to see it. You want your message to be highly visible amongst your audience so it has as big an impact as possible. Edgerank determines how many people will see your message, so it’s crucial that you keep these three factors of the algorithm in mind. Your Edgerank is constantly evolving so it’s important to do what you can to keep it as high as possible. How do you do that? Well, it’s all about quality and consistency.
Build Affinity with your fans by interacting on a personal level
To affect your affinity score with your fans on Facebook, you must create relevant and worthwhile content that builds your relationship with them. Does your content make them laugh, or engage them in some emotional way? Can you engage in one to one conversation with your fans to build relationships? Invite them to converse interact with you, and encourage loyalty and interaction by making all posts as meaningful as possible.
Update regularly so your Time score stays high
If you post regular updates your Edgerank score will reflect that and you will have increased visibility amongst your audience. It’s as simple as that! As marketers we sometimes shy away from communicating regularly with our audience; we don’t want to bombard them. In many practices, email marketing for example, it’s right to think this way, however with social media and in particular Facebook, it is much better to post regularly. How often? One wall post a day is a good solid amount, making sure that every message is worthwhile and not just there for the sake of it! Never post regularly at the expense of quality. All posts must be valuable and not there simply to affect your Edgerank score.
Gain Weight by creating great content
To gain Weight in this sense (or popularity to put it another way) you have to create likeable, shareable content that encourages comment. Think about each of these things that you want them to do and ask yourself whether the post encourages them to do that. You don’t have to explicitly request that they share, like or comment of course. You can encourage them subtly by asking questions, running competitions, showing you care as a company – give them something they want to tell their friends about!
Post great content regularly and you’ll have great Edgerank
It is very important to be aware of algorithms. We know that content, incoming links and clear tags and filenames is what Google’s algorithm is looking for to be ranked highly in their search results, so we create our websites around those principles. We want to be visible in Facebook’s Top News feed and so we will adhere to these Edgerank principles too. However, much like optimising your website, if you are doing all the right things anyway you will already naturally get a high Edgerank. There are no quick ways around it, no black hat methods or tricks of the trade. Like most online marketing it comes down to creating great content that will be useful to your customers – and being in it for the long term.