If your company’s updates on Facebook have been successful and your fans actually see them on their news feeds, you should take advantage of EdgeRank. An Edge in a nutshell is everything that seemingly takes place in Facebook. Some of the Edges you might be familiar with include shares, likes, comments and updates among others. It is basically any action taking place within this social networking site.
Table of Contents
Edge Rank Algorithm
This is basically a sum of all the edges, made up of Time Decay, Weight and Affinity. Affinity is the relationship that exists between an Edge and a user, for instance a fan and brand. You can build Affinity through repeat interactions of the Edges of a Product by influencing the Affinity of a user through messaging, clicking, sharing, liking and commenting.
Weight is a creation of Facebook that increases or decreases the worth of specific actions. For example, since commenting is quite involving, it is worth more than a like, meaning it has a higher value. Each Edge is given a value selected by Facebook.
Time Decay indicates the length of time a specific Edge has been around. The older the Edge the worthless it is since an aging Edge loses value and one has to keep refreshing the News Feed with fresh and interesting content rather than let old content linger.
To get the best result out of EdgeRank, there are a number of tips to help you do this.
Place content to Facebook within Facebook
If an EdgeRank score is higher, it is very likely your fans on Facebook will see the added content on your brand’s page. Update the content on Facebook through a third party application of software and your score will be affected. Aim at updating into Facebook by adding content directly and avoid third party applications, websites or software to do it on your behalf.
Mix your content
You can mix your updates by uploading videos, adding photos or linking to videos and photos. Do not stick to text only. The engagement you will get varies since some increase the EdgeRank than others. A good example is a like on a photo update which is less valuable than a comment.
Enhance fan engagement
Genuine engagement is very important and not just impressions. For instance, avoid offering prizes, incentives or bribing fans to increase engagement or else you might break the promotional guidelines laid out by Facebook, risking your page with a deletion and losing fans you have worked hard for. If you want to run promotions, do it carefully. Increase your fan engagement to receive more comments, shares, likes and others from more individuals apart from the same fans only.
Make the most of your network
You can begin by letting your business partners, colleagues and staff, whether they are digital agencies or the media, to like the content you have updated towards soaring your EdgeRank. They might end up sharing the updates, commenting and liking to your delight. Of course, approach it with a lot of good judgment since EdgeRank is not as unintelligent as many might think. Your partners and staff will be seeing the content on your updates as their news feeds refresh. The application also looks at each fan’s engagement and some fans might be left out if they are not engaging the updates.
Find the right updates
If you have a page you administer, look for the page allowing you to view insights within the admin panel, usually on the top of the page. View the full insights by clicking the area and you will either be dismayed, shocked or fascinated, depending on how your updates have been performed in the past.
The insights page will open your eyes to data on each update chronologically. Most of the measurements factored in EdgeRank scores are found there. You will be able to see the updates that you need to focus on, perhaps funny updates, breaking news, photos and others that attract the attention of your fans. Remember old updates do not work well with EdgeRank.
Timing must be right
If you have your timing wrong, your fans will not see the updates and engagement will be highly affected. Know when you need to update your page depending on your brand or organization and what is acceptable to your fans. After sorting out the frequency, consider the time your Facebook fans are online. Only update when most or all your fans are online or on Facebook; engagements such as comments and shares will shoot up notably.
While it still might be early to ascertain EdgeRank’s long term effects, always remember great content will always be king. Share the right content or information users enjoy, find insightful, useful and relevant and it will definitely do more than improve your EdgeRank score.
About Mark
Mark is a Internet Marketing consultant working as a freelancer offering SEO / Internet Marketing services in Washington D.C. He often writes resourceful articles and reviews Social Media and SEO Services offered by many online companies in his area.