So you’ve created a Facebook page for your business, you’ve built up a loyal fan base, ran a couple of competitions but you’ve began to notice that fan activity on your page has become stagnant. The most likely cause of this is a low EdgeRank score. The best way to succeed on Facebook is to engage with your fans on a regular basis and EdgeRank is a measure of this success.

What is EdgeRank?

EdgeRank is the Facebook algorithm that rates and values the engagement between your page and your fans. It determines what content is published on a user’s newsfeed. Contrary to popular belief, not all new activity/content is published on a user’s newsfeed so the greater your EdgeRank score, the greater visibility you’ll get on a fan’s newsfeed. One of the primary reasons for a decrease in fan activity on your page is due to the fact that you’re not visible to your fans, and they may have forgotten about your page. You need to create an edge over competitors (Facebook refers to any actions such as a comment, new posts, likes or shares as an edge) and maximise your visibility. On a technical level, EdgeRank grades a page based on affinity, weight and time decay.

Affinity: This is the relationship between the page and the fan. Pages which have fans that frequently interact with them have a greater chance of been shown on a newsfeed.

Weight: This refers to the quality of your content. It is believed that videos carry more weight than photos and that status updates carry the least weight. However, comments on a status update carry a lot of weight.

Time Decay: EdgeRank publishes current content so the older the edge/content, the less likelihood of it appearing on a fan’s newsfeed.

Now that you understand EdgeRank, you need to decide on a strategy to optimise your page activity for EdgeRank. But let’s bring it back to basics for a minute.

Facebook is a business, and at the end of the day it needs to make profits to survive. Facebook earns revenue from advertising so the more time a user spends on the site the greater opportunity marketers have to target consumers. Interesting posts and content encourage users to participate and spend more time online with Facebook, and in return for capturing and holding a users attention Facebook will reward you with a higher EdgeRank. EdgeRank can’t be manipulated so the solution is interaction, interaction, interaction!

Take a look at the tips in our post “what should I post on my Facebook page for business use”. We hope this will provide you with useful tips to engage your fans and increase your EdgeRank.

If you would like assistance setting up, managing your Facebook business page or defining a strategy to use Facebook to sell your products and services – Contact us here…