Posts Tagged measure facebook edge rank

A while back we wrote  an article on making an impact on Facebook through your business Facebook page.  We wrote:

While Facebook updates may seem like a way to alert fans to events and news – showing up like messages in users’ in-boxes – a very small percentage of updates are actually visible to fans, because of an algorithm called EdgeRank.

EdgeRank gives every post a quality score – measuring the number of comments, likes, and shares per post against the number of fans a page has. Businesses who want to be seen need to build up their EdgeRank, by making their posts interaction friendly – which means businesses need to spend more time building community with their fans.

If you can succeed at building your EdgeRank, your business has a higher chance of increasing your brand recognition and therefore, your revenue.     If you’re like most businesses, this means that EdgeRank should probably play a larger role in your marketing efforts.

As a Seattle Social Media Marketing company, Rorymartin.com focuses on helping our customers build their EdgeRank.  Our clients are better equipped to educate their target audience and build brand awareness.  Our clients are able to win and retain customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing.

So how is EdgeRank calculated, and what do you need to do to improve yours?

Every post (status updates, polls, photos, etc) is an “object” and objects all have edges – therefore each of your posts has “edge”.  Every single EdgeRank score depends on individual Facebook users’ post consumption.  The EdgeRank Algorithm was designed to show individual users more of what they “like” to see in their news feed.  The higher the EdgeRank of your particular post, the more likely it will appear across your users’ feeds.

The algorithm looks like this:

So what does this algorithm mean?

Social Media Affinity is the relationship between your business and your target audience, based on frequency of contact, logins, likes, post responses, shares etc.  If a user has interacted with your business Facebook page in the past, the user has an affinity for your brand.  The only way you can build affinity is to create engaging post content that will entice your target audience to come to your page to interact.

Weight is based on how many clicks a post receives against each major Facebook metric (clicks per like, clicks per comment, clicks per impression).  For example, just getting a bunch of users to click “like” won’t cut it – unless you have millions of them each day.  What you really need are comments, since comments have 4 times the weight of “likes”.  How do you create comments?  Comment generation is done in much the same way as building affinity – create engaging content.

Time Decay is KEY.  Think back to your Facebook timeline.  How many times does that page change in an hour?  In a minute?  In 10 seconds? EdgeRank changes the time-decay factor based on how frequently users log into Facebook – so if your users are used to checking Facebook several times a day, your post may disappear more quickly based on this time decay-factor.  EdgeRank Checker explains,

“With the new hybrid news feed comes more objects in the feed, as Top Stories happen at a faster rate than previously. Facebook most likely increased the speed at which objects time decay. It seems that this has created a more “honed in” EdgeRank effect. Meaning, EdgeRank is creating Top Stories for users who are more likely to engage and dropping less engaging objects into Recent Stories.”

How do you overcome time-decay?  Post when your target audience is ready to engage. This means doing a little research on your target audience.  Know when they’re online and what they’re talking about.

Other tips:  Treat each “like” as a potential brand ambassador and make it worth their while to be on your page.  Offer exclusive fans-only content.  Use calls to action – for example “Like this status if you agree!”

Well this all sounds pretty difficult, doesn’t it? That’s where Rorymartin.com comes in.  We’re focused helping our customers create and execute their social media campaigns.  We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing.  From entrepreneurs to established businesses, we do the work so you don’t have to – making social media simple.