EdgeRank is the algorithm that Facebook uses to decide
whether or not posts from friends or business pages appear in our news feed. If
you want to be seen by the average user it’s important to know how this works
and what Facebook considers worthy content. This isn't as grey-hat as it sounds, it's just about producing good stuff.
EdgeRank takes several factors into consideration. They are:
Time
How recently was the content posted?
How long did the user spend on content published by this
page previously?
Weight
What type of content is being posted. Different types of
content have greater or lesser chances of being seen. Facebook looks at this
akin to the amount of effort we put into a post. A standard simple comment has
very little EdgeRank. A link has a bit more. An image or videos are far more
likely to be seen.
Affinity
Has the user engaged with content from our brand before?
Have they liked posts, shared articles, clicked through on links, and
commented? Did the brand comment back or like their comment? All these factors
add affinity.
With this in mind there are things we can do to boost our
EdgeRank, however, they do require effort. Creativity is what’s going to
differentiate your content. The effort that Facebook wants us to put in to
guarantee our content is of good quality and relevance. Let’s take each of the
above factors separately to show how, collectively, they can make a difference:
Timing is Important
Posting at prime times, when our audience is there to
respond and see our content is critical. Think about when your audience is
online. Will they be checking their mobile devices on the tube on the way to
work? Will they be sitting back after dinner, around 6:15 and mulling over
their feed? Will they take a look over their lunchtime coffee? Naturally every
brand is different, but we commonly see an increase of 15 to 20 percent
engagement at weekends. Insider knowledge of your brand and audience play a big
part here – some testing may be necessary.
timing is important
People need to engage for longer so we have to post content
that takes a while to digest. In short, well-written and engaging content is
king. The inclusion of animated gifs or embedded video could be a bonus to add
‘stickiness’, but whatever it is it better be awesome. The longer people are
engaged the greater it raises the chances of your posts being seen in the
future. Strong opinion pieces. Well researched studies. Useful and helpful
how-to’s. Whatever it is, it better be good.
Think Content Type
Post images. You’ll probably want to drive traffic via
links, but posting good, amusing or entertaining, original images will give it
a boost so that when you do post a link you’ve raised affinity (by people
seeing them and liking them) and it will help to compensate. There’s plenty of
good image banks out there if you can’t capture something new, give CompFight a
look. It’s good to think of alternative ways to use images like using them to
support quotes if it fits the brand. Behind-the-scenes imagery has the added
benefit of allowing you to tag people which gives further exposure to peoples
friends and peers. Get creative - try some of these.
If you have video available to you make sure, with Facebooks
auto-play feature in mobile, that it’s going to grab people in the first six
seconds. Can you repurpose slide presentations? Can you commission industry
explainers? Can you showcase your HQ or cover charity events?
Build a Relationship
If you are posting links be sure to change the title, body
text and image to offer a more enticing click-through opportunity.
building a 'special' relationship between interface and human
Small competitions and sweepstakes can gather great
traction. When doing so it’s important to allow space for organic spread (so, run
them over a week or more) to give people a chance to engage and to see posts
their friends have engaged with. Pinning them the top of the Page for a week
will also allow new visitors to engage more easily and will increase sign-up,
as well as saying “Hey, we run competitions.”
Ask for opinions and invite commentary. Get your audience to
share their own images and encourage engagement. Simple posts offering tips,
then asking the audience if they have any further suggestions, can work well.
Boosting posts (by paying for them) to make sure the
audience sees them, at least once or twice a month, can offer an added push.
Keeping an eye on our Pages Insights will show us the type
of content our audience responds best too, and so what we can publish in the
future that will get strong results.
There are a few other things to consider:
Pay for it
It’s also possible to pay-to-be-seen. Simple boosted posts
are an excellent way to gather affinity by getting them under people’s noses.
I’ve had single posts, boosted for only ten pounds, reach over 56,000 targeted
people. This is a great one to combine with like and share competitions or
simple give-aways. Consider the expenditure like a highly targeted branding
exercise. Don’t forget, if people like a boosted post their friends and
followers will be told they’ve done so by Facebook.
Use no Applications
Facebook doesn’t like content posted from applications,
which includes the likes of external publishing tools like Hootsuite, Buffer,
Sprout Social or whatever. This is to stop the Poker apps and Candy Crush
clones of old from spamming our streams. Content must be scheduled via the Facebook
platform, or posted immediately. Even auto-posting from other social channels,
like Twitter, is a wasted effort. Yes, it’ll post, but experience has shown us
that the chances of it being seen are drastically reduced.
In summing up. Good content posted at the right time with
good imagery. Accept no substitute, because Facebook doesn’t and no ones going to see Jack or shit if you don't put some effort in - that's just how it is.