EdgeRank… Why Everyone Should Know About It
There have been many changes with Facebook over the last couple months and my clients and colleagues have been asking about how the changes will affect posts, effectiveness, and their specific pages. While there have been many changes aesthetically, the most noteworthy (and drawing the most attention) is the change to the Facebook News Feed and what is being featured in it. Basically Facebook took the initiative to change what you see when you log on – which I don’t blame them. Their goal now is to only show you the news that is deemed “important” to you, based on your previous interactions with people on Facebook, how long ago it was posted, and what type of media it is.
Facebook now has a fairly simple algorithm it uses to decide on whether or not your story is going to show up in your followers’ News Feeds. The end result your post gets from this algorithm is considered its “EdgeRank.” When you sign in to Facebook, the post that has the highest “EdgeRank” for you will show up first in your News Feed – thus you only see posts that are deemed “important” to you. In it’s simplest form it is very easy to understand and see how it makes sense. As stated before, the masterminds at Facebook have figured out that what makes an update important to you is based on what type of update it is (EdgeWeight), your previous connection with the source (Affinity), and how long ago it was posted (Recency). Affinity x EdgeWeight x Recency = EdgeRank. It is important to note that Affinity goes down over time unless consistent connections are being made (views, likes, comments, clicks, etc, etc).
EdgeRank is a fairly simply concept but extremely important to understand.
The importance of understanding this is also easy to comprehend. You want your status updates, photos, and videos to be seen as many of your followers as possible. If you don’t have a high EdgeRank, your fans and followers simply will not see your updates unless they choose to scroll down their News Feed for a while or you choose to pour more money into Facebook Advertising (yes, you can target people that already like your page with Facebook Ads to promote whatever it is you wish to promote).
So, what does this mean for businesses and how they use social media? First of all, it means that more extensive and careful monitoring of posts will be needed. Second of all, this means that if you are not active on your page, your EdgeRank will slowly decrease and when you eventually decide to use it no one will see what you are doing. And lastly, this means that you need to work on increasing your EdgeRank immediately prior to having something important released. For instance – if you wish to tell all of your followers about a Facebook exclusive deal for a limited time only, you should put some conversation-provoking material out for a few days leading up to the release of the promotion. This ensures that you will reach as many of your fans and followers as possible without having to spend any more money on Facebook Advertising.
Any and all feedback is encouraged so please feel free to add your thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, and banter below. Also if you like what you are reading please put your email address in on this blog to get updates when they are published! Get ahold of me instantly through Twitter! Just tweet @bradcebulski and let me know what you think.
Posted by Brad Cebulski about 1 year, 6 months, 1 week, 5 days, 4 hours, 40 minutes ago...
Subscribe
