Facebook's EdgeRank

Our second White Paper deals with a Facebook algorithm called EdgeRank, which decides what content is displayed in news feeds. Users see about 16% of the content generated by their friends and the Pages they have liked. Read on to find out how you can increase your own visibility on Facebook.

Transcript

1. Facebook’s EdgeRank How to Increase Your Visibility
2. About Ondango Ondango is a beautifully designed shopping system that helps you sell your products on your Facebook page, by leveraging Facebook’s viral features. Sell your products directly on your Facebook page and complete the transaction within Facebook. Engage your fans with fan-only promotions, Daily Deals and Product discounts. Increase your reach on the world’s biggest social network and use viral features to spread the word. Monetize your Facebook presence through this additional sales channel & turn fans into customers. About the Author Carolin Schlenther is a Social Scientist with Customer Service experience. She has a Masters in Social Research Methods and is currently filling the position of Manager Customer Experience at Ondango.
3. Introduction Setting up an online shop on Facebook is an exciting undertaking. Neverthless, as opposed to a shop in the brick-and-mortar-world, it is not enough to just open your “doors” and get traffic. In the online world you have to entice customers with something they cannot get anywhere else, and you have to continuously post and advertise in order to keep your fans engaged and talking about your shop. In this White Paper we will take a closer look at the basics of the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm, what it means for your Facebook Page, how to get sufficient traffic and how to increase your own visibility. How to improve your Page’s visibility. Understanding Facebook’s EdgeRank.
4. Understanding Facebook’s EdgeRank Your Facebook timeline is your direct link to your fans and their news feeds, but your fans are connected to many other Pages and Profiles on Facebook as well. Getting updates from every single one of them would create an overwhelming amount of information. So in order to optimize users’ news feeds, Facebook employs an algorithm called EdgeRank, which decides what content is displayed in news feeds. On average, users see about 16% of all the content generated by their friends and the Pages they have liked. Understanding how this algorithm works is therefore fundamental, as posts of Pages with a high EdgeRank will be more likely to show up in the news feeds of fans. The exact formula of the EdgeRank algorithm is kept secret by Facebook, but it is known to be based on three variables: AFFINITY The individual relationship between a fan and a brand (How much has a fan interacted with a brand?) 1 WEIGHT The type of posted item (photos & videos carry more weight than textual updates) & the type of interactions on that post (comments & shares have a higher impact on the weight scoring than likes). 2 TIME DECAY The time since the content was posted. The older a post the lower its value. 3
5. Strategies to Improve Your EdgeRank So how do you use Facebook EdgeRank to your advantage? Buddy Media, an award-winning social enterprise software company, has tackled the question of when and how to post most effectively on Facebook in order to increase traffic and visibility. “More than 30 billion pieces of content […] are shared on Facebook each month” (Buddy Media), so you really want to know how to make your most important Posts seen AND responded to in this jumble of news feed chatter, and despite EdgeRank. After having monitored and analysed the Facebook posts of 200 of their clients over a period of 2 weeks, Buddy Media came up with these results: KEEP POSTS SHORT AND SWEET. Posts containing 80 characters or less have a 27% higher engagement rate. 1 POST WHEN PEOPLE ARE LISTENING. Fans go on Facebook after their own work, so brands that post outside of business hours have 20% higher engagement rates. Post early in the morning or late at night! 2
6. DETERMINE YOUR BEST DAY TO SHARE CONTENT. On Thursday and Friday engagement rates are 18% higher than during other days of the week, but the exact day of high engagement depends on your industry. Please remember to post from your Page at least once every day, but keep the days of highest fan engagement for your most important items! So which industry is yours? 3 Entertainment Industry Media Industry Retail Industry Fashion Industry Healthcare & Beauty Industry Food & Beverage Industry Travel & Hospitality Industry Sports Industry Your fans are most engaged over the weekend. Post on Saturday & Sunday, but avoid Monday. Your fans are most active on Facebook on Sun- day, but hardly engaged at all on Friday. Your best day for posts is Thursday, but avoid Fridays. You should post on Thursday as engagement rates are by far highest on this day. Engagement rates peak on Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday for this industry. Avoid posting at the weekend or on Wednesday. Choose Thursday & Friday instead. Sunday is your day to post. Engagement rates for the rest of the week are considerably lower.
7. CHOOSE ACTION KEYWORDS. Fans follow instructions well, so the simpler, the better. 4 Drive Likes Drive Comments Keywords Simply and directly ask for it. Outright requests work most effectively. Ask straightforward questions & ask for responses. “Post”, “comment” or “tell” are the keywords which work best. The keywords with the highest response as well as positive comment and ‘like’ rate are “like” and “post”. ASK QUESTIONS AT THE END OF POSTS. In order to get response from your fans to a question, place it at the end of the post, as those posts have a 15% higher engagement rate. Also watch out to use easy to answer question words. “Where”, “when”, “should”, and “would” in particular, drive the highest engagement rates, while “how”, “who”, “what”, “did” and “why” have the lowest. 6 USE “SOFTER SELL” KEYWORDS FOR PROMOTIONS. “Softer sell” keywords like “event”, “winner”, “offer”, “new” or “win” resonate better with fans than aggressive keywords like “contest”, “promotion”, “sweepstake” or “coupon”. Buddy Media explains: “Win/winning keywords give fans something to get excited about rather than feeling they are being sold to”. 5
8. Conclusion 1. Predominantly post photos, videos, questions and milestones. 2. Post at least once per day. 3. Choose your best day to share important content acording to your industry. 4. Keep updates short and precise. 5. Ask for likes and comments in response to your posts.