EdgeRank: Optimizing Your Facebook Posts

Have you ever noticed that you only see a handful of posts (relative to the number of friends or fans you have) on your Facebook news feed? What about the varying positions of these posts on your feed? It is all decided by EdgeRank, Facebook’s algorithm for determining what is displayed, and how high it is displayed, on users’ news feeds.

The official EdgeRank algorithm looks something like this:

In simple terms, an Edge can be described as anything that “happens” on Facebook. These could include status updates, likes, shares, tags, comments, etc. Based on the above components of a certain Edge (affinity, weight, or time decay) the algorithm ranks the Edge’s importance to you, and the highest scoring Edges are typically shown higher on your news feed. For Brand pages, your EdgeRank can be a useful tool to see how successful your Facebook efforts are in terms of engaging your fans. So, how do you get to the top of your fans’ news feeds?

To optimize for EdgeRank, you need engagement on Facebook to begin with. If your fans aren’t engaging with you, chances are that your Brand Page is less important to them, and therefore can’t make a lasting impression on their news feeds. Start by posting engaging content with high sharing potential. Photos and videos are a great start. If people share your content, even more people will see it and hopefully engage with it. This will bring people back to your page to interact with other material on your Timeline.

Be sure to post frequently. The more unique content you put out there, the more interaction from fans (and EdgeRank) you will gain. Another tip would be to keep your posts short and sweet. Posts between 100-250 characters get 60% more likes (think Twitter). Finally, ask for what you want. A simple fill-in-the-blank status or opinion-based question will get your fans to engage 90% more. You can’t fight the facts.

This image from Charlottesville’s Facebook fan page has tremendous engagement. By asking questions in your photo captions, you will gain more comments (and a higher EdgeRank)!

Does EdgeRank really matter? The answer is “yes”! Brands with a high EdgeRank can have more than 5x the exposure of Brands that do not. Also, 27% of all time spent on Facebook is spent looking at the news feed, so it is obviously important to get your content on there.

The EdgeRank Checker is a free application that you can use to monitor your rank. Not only does it show your ranking, but it breaks it down and even tells you the best time of day to post for your specific Brand page.

Having a strong social media presence is important for most businesses in today’s world, but how do you stack up? If you need more help, check out our free Facebook Timeline for Business Checklist for quick tips and tricks!