EdgeRank was introduced by Facebook in April 2012 to determine what is shown on your newsfeed and how high.
As Facebook became bigger, and users started to Like more and more pages, it needed to start filtering content on people’s newsfeeds from these various Pages, so you see the most relevant important news to you. This means the more people engage with your content the more it will show as Facebook considers it what you want to see.
So how do you ensure as much of your content as possible is going to be seen by people who have Liked your page? Firstly it is important to understand the basic EdgeRank measures:
Affinity: How closely are you tied to the viewer? How many times have they interacted with your page before?
Weight: Given to the post by actions such as Likes, comments and tags etc.
Time: Value of content lessens as time passes.
Under your posts is displayed the number of people who have seen it. Obviously this grows over the day as it more people engaged with it. It is probably best to check back after a day for a true reflection of the Reach of the post.
It is really important to keep a check of which posts are doing well and notice any patterns, such as: which people engaging with your videos; are images more popular; are there any times of the day you get more engagement?
You’ll also see a message underneath the post asking you if you want to promote It. At the same time as introducing EdgeRank Facebook introduced this Promoted Posts facility, which effectively means you can pay to increase the Reach of any post, subject to a few restrictions. This was quite controversial at the time, and there are differing accounts as to how effective it is. At HdK we do use promoted posts from time to time and if the client has a fairly significant following, have found utilising the option to target the people who Like Your Page, as opposed to all their friends as well, could be the more effective way to use it. This way you are sure to be reaching people who are interested in your brand or type of company, perhaps reigniting their interest in your page and thus encouraging them to engage more with your posts. (Although this of course will vary from post to post.)
Lastly it is worth pointing out that visual content – strong, striking images – is the most engaged with type of content. This means if you want to attain a good score on EdgeRank and reach your followers, in general short text-status-updates are nowadays pretty unlikely to be seen. There has been lots of blogging and writing about the ‘Power of the Image’ on Facebook especially with the imminent introduction of the new newsfeeds and the emphasis on rich photos. Here is a link to read more.
Further reading we found useful:
8 ways your content strategy should change with the new Facebook newsfeeds