EdgeRank – the Facebook Algorithm | Explained in easy terms

EdgeRank – very important.

Facebook Edgerank – the Facebook algorithm

You’ve got a business page on Facebook, and you’ve had some “Likes” for that page. How can you ensure that your posts are reaching all those profiles?

Let’s assume your page has been liked by Mary. Mary has 100 family and friends on Facebook, and she’s also “Liked” 30 other Facebook pages.

• Will Mary’s news feed show everything you post on her own page? No!
• Will Mary’s news feed show everything all her family and friends post on their walls?  No!

So what will Mary see, and how is that decided? Well, that’s where EdgeRank features!

Posts shown on Mary’s news feed will come from sources (pages or profiles) that have higher EdgeRank.

So what is EdgeRank? And how can I influence it?

What is EdgeRank?

EdgeRank is made up of 3 things:

1. Affinity – how close are you to the reader
2. Weight – comments carry more weight than likes
3. Time Decay – decreases edgerank for an interaction over time

There is a fuller  explanation of  ‘what is EdgeRank’ here

How can I influence EdgeRank?

EdgeRank can be improved by improving those three elements:

1. Improving Affinity – increase your interaction with Mary. Build a relationship through commenting on her posts, liking her posts and sharing.
2. Improving Weight – An accumulation of comments, likes and shares with page fans will improve weight. Generally the more interactive exchanges – comments and shares – will produce better “weight” than “Likes” which are quick and take little effort to acquire.
3. Time Decay – As posts get older they will naturally lose edge rank, but if the feed is kept fresh, with interesting new content and good affinity/weight, the time decay will be slower.

So, in a nutshell, EdgeRank is Facebook’s way of calculating whether or not your page and its posts are interesting enough and important enough to Mary to appear on her news feed.

EdgeRank applies to pages as well as personal profiles and that is why you may find Friends and Pages who are very active when you go to their walls, never seem to come up in your News Feed whereas others are less active but more visible to you.

What does it mean to small businesses?

Your Facebook business page is pretty much a waste of time UNLESS you proactively interact with people.

What do you think? Post your comments and own experiences below . . . . .

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