When you make an update to your campaign Facebook Page, you probably know that not all your fans will see it. But did you know that some fans will never see your updates, no matter what? In fact, for some pages, less than 10% of their fans actually see their updates. And it’s all because of a thing called Edgerank.

So, what is Edgerank? Edgerank is a secret algorithm used by Facebook to determine if page posts are actually seen by individual fans of that page. The algorithm helps Facebook deliver the news that a person (probably) want to see and filters out the rest. Edgerank is what determines whether your post ends up in someone’s Top News or Most Recent list.

This makes sense, because if there wasn’t some sort of filtering mechanism on Facebook, everyone’s news feeds would suffer from an endless and constant stream of status updates and spam.

To start, we’re going to get a little technical, then we’re going see what best practices your campaign can do to improve its Edgerank and ensure that your updates are – and continue to be – seen by as many followers as possible.

The technical stuff

The first thing to understand is to know that any new piece of content on Facebook (pictures/statuses/etc.) is considered an object. Every interaction with an object (likes of it, comments about it, and sharing) is an edge. The Edgerank of an object is the sum of the scores of all its edges. This score is determined by three factors:

• Affinity Score - If you frequently interact with a particular person/page or their content, their updates will have a high affinity score for you. Affinity on Facebook is one way – even if you always like someone’s updates, this will not make them more likely to see yours.
• Weight for Edge Type - Certain types of content are given priority by Facebook. Videos tend to be weighed greater than photos, which are greater than links. Statuses come last, and the “question” option (often referred to as polls) is probably first. Interaction with objects improved weight. Comments and shares given higher weight than likes.
• Time Decay – As you might expect, as time passes it is less likely for an object to appear in someone’s news feed.

These three factors are calculated to decide the priority for your update – once it crosses a certain level, it will appear in a fan’s “Top News” feed. The higher your Edgerank score, the more likely all of your fans will see the content you add on your campaign’s Facebook page.

If someone stops interacting with your page or content, in time this can lead to your content less likely to show up on their news feed.

What this means to you

Edgerank means that people don’t have to unlike your page to stop seeing your updates – they just have to ignore you. For companies (and campaigns) that send primarily one-way promotional messages, this is likely to happen. To get past this effect, Facebook lets your run Sponsored Stories (Facebook Ads). This is a paid method that can guarantee your updates show up in front of your fans (and their friends as well, if you choose).

For campaigns, you may want to go paid now matter what build and maintain exposure – but if you can maintain free promotion via fan interaction, that’s even better.

You can raise your affinity with your fans and help ensure that they see more of your posts through the following methods:

• Encourage interaction by creating a dialogue, discussion, or debate.
• Ask fans to comment on your wall, tag themselves in your pictures, or share pictures. Offline activities such as fundraisers and events are great times to encourage this.
• Do the above without pushing too hard – especially when asking others to share.

Create great content that encourages interaction:

• Post trivia and thought-provoking questions.
• Write and promote content that is interesting, valuable, and buzzworthy.
• Use pictures, links, and videos in your posts that encourage commenting.
• Promote relevant content from other sources besides your own website.

Experiment with different ideas and topics to determine what makes people react. The frequency of your updates should depend on your audience. Posting every day or multiple times a day isn’t doesn’t help your Edgerank if your fans aren’t responding.

Final tips

Researchers suggest that you can influence your Edgerank by the way you post. It is better if you put your updates into Facebook directly rather than use third-party software or applications to schedule and automatically feed your updates to your page.

Some of Facebook research suggests that performance is improved when you post Facebook updates no more than once every second day unless you’re a news organization or where daily or multiple posts a day are expected – and accepted – by your fans. This suggests that you might want to post less frequently early in a campaign and increase your frequency as public interest in the campaign increases. Again, this is subjective to your own campaign and current situation.

Viral content is very valuable because it strengthens your affinity with fans and increases your chances of ending up in “Top News” of your followers.

Here’s a great video explaining Edgerank:

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