Recently, George Takei caused some controversy when he was critical of Facebook’s key algorithm EdgeRank. Because of that algorithm, he noticed that not all of his posts were reaching those who like his page. Other pages with similar amounts of likes may be seeing this happen with their pages as well.
What is EdgeRank?
Photo courtesy of Business 2 Community
EdgeRank is an algorithm that decides who will see a post in their newsfeed based on who’s most likely to share, like or comment on the news. According to Facebook, with EdgeRank, the average post is only sent to 15% of newsfeeds. This creates a problem for brands that are trying to communicate directly to their audience with the greatest possible reach. But don’t feel discouraged just yet. There are ways to work around this setback with one way being to promote posts. But if you read further we’ll share less costly ways to extend your reach through EdgeRank optimization.
Working Around EdgeRank
Encourage Your Fans to Opt-In
If you’re comfortable suggesting directly to your audience to opt-in to see all your posts, then this tactic might be for you. Have your fans mouse over the “Liked” button for your page, then have them click “Get Notifications.” They will then see all the posts from your page.
Facebook confirmed that this method will work in a statement made to Inside Facebook:
“We are currently rolling out the ability for people to receive notifications from specific pages, friends or public figures that they are connected to. This feature will help people keep up with the people and things that they care about most.”
EdgeRank Optimization for Your Page
If you’d like to take a more subtle approach and still get your message across, we recommend that you consider optimizing the content of your page to bump up your rank. Here are some tips on optimizing your content:
1. Post Photos. Pages get more fan engagement from photos than links or statuses, so get creative with them. For example, if you really want to link to a video, you may want to post a thumbnail of your video along with a link to the actual video. But be sure to not let the video preview show up—click the “X” button when it appears.
2. Create Photo Albums. In newsfeeds, photo album posts show up as several photos, so they’re likely to get users’ attention.
3. Write More Text. With longer posts, there is a “see more” option that users click to read the rest of the text. Readers can help boost your rank each time they click because it shows they spent more time on your post.
4. Use Post Targeting. You can segment your fans and sort them into different groups based on things like age, gender, interests, education, location and more. The more targeted your posts, the more likely you are to increase post engagement.
By diversifying and adding more engaging content, you will likely increase your EdgeRank ranking and increase the likelihood that more of your audience will see your content. If you are interested, you can go so far as to use EdgeRank Checker, which is a free application that monitors your rank.
