The Key to Facebook Success: Understanding Facebook’s Edgerank

You are probably aware that Google has an algorithm that determines how high a page is ranked within its search engine. But what some people might not know is that Facebook has its own algorithm for determining how often your followers will see your posts in their News Feed. This is called the Edgerank.

When you make a post, you will obviously want your followers to see it in their News Feed but there are certain factors that will determine the number of people who see it. So what are these Factors?

1. Has the user interacted with the author? Have their friends been engaging with the author’s posts?
2. Has the user interacted with similar posts? If it’s typical for them to like and share photos then it’s more likely that posts featuring photos will show up in their News Feed.
3. Are the user’s friends and the larger network engaging with the post? If a post is receiving a large number of likes then it is more likely to appear in News Feeds. But if it receives complaints then it is less likely to show up.
4. Has the post or the author received complaints? If an author’s posts are ignored or are enough to elicit complaints then there’s less of a chance that they will reach other people’s News Feeds.

 

The reason for Facebook’s Edgerank was to reduce spam and the number of complaints from users and according to Facebook they were successful in this. It is a system that rewards authors for having a below average number of complaints and penalizes the authors who get too many.

Many businesses have criticised Facebook’s Edgerank. They claimed that, since its introduction, the reach of their posts has decreased dramatically. There is the option to increase that reach for a price and naturally companies aren’t too pleased about having an extra cost.

But it must be said that this is a system designed to improve a user’s engagement with what goes on in their News Feed. Individuals are seeing less spam and are more likely to see posts that they are happy to interact with.

There are sites like edgerankchecker.com that will help you to analyse the Edgeranking and success of your posts. It will provide you with an Edgerank score and make recommendations on how to improve it. This doesn’t have to cost you anything either (depending on what features you want) as there is a free version of this service.

Alternatively there are a couple of other tricks you can try. The first is to ask your followers to add you in to their interest lists. They do this by going to your page and clicking on the wheel symbol and it’s the first option on there.

Another idea is to ask your followers to receive notifications from you. They do this by clicking the Like button where a drop down menu will appear. Then they just click Get Notifications. Once they’ve done this, your followers will get notification flags whenever you make a post.

Of course, whether people will want to do this or not is down to the quality of posts you make and how interested they are in them. If you only ever post boring adverts every hour, it’s highly unlikely anyone will want notifications from you. But if your content is creative and engaging, your followers will be more than happy to get updates on your activity.

If you’re curious about just how many people are viewing your posts, this information is available by using Facebook Insights.

For more information on how to increase your Edgerank, visit Disrupt Media