Understanding EdgeRank: Five Ways To Reach More Fans on Facebook

Posted on December 12, 2012 at 1:36 pm by Julie DiCaro in Social Media

If you’re a brand, or if you manage social media for a brand, you’ve probably noticed a big drop off in the number of fans you reach with each individual Facebook post. While many brands were surprised to find that 100% of their Facebook posts weren’t seen by 100% their fans, most could count on their posts appearing on the pages of somewhere around 56% of their fans at any given time.

All that changed this Fall, when EdgeRank, the algorithm Facebook uses to determine what posts users see in their newsfeed, changed its formula, resulting in a 40% drop-off, on average, in the number of fans who saw a brand’s post at any given time. While brands and brand managers scrambled to figure out to how combat the drop-off in reach, Facebook found itself having to defend charges that it changed EdgeRank in order to force brands to spend money to “promote” their Facebook posts, thereby getting their status updates back in front of a higher percentage of their fans.

No matter Facebook’s motivation in changing the EdgeRank algorithm, the fact is that the current formula isn’t going away any time soon. Luckily, the formula used by EdgeRank is widely known (Weight x Affinity x Time Decay = a posts’s EdgeRank score), and there are some easy things your brand can do to push your posts’ EdgeRank scores higher. The higher your post’s EdgeRank score, the higher percentage of your fans that will see your post.

With that in mind, here are five thing your can do to increase your EdgeRank Scores:

1) Vary the type of content (weight): The first factor EdgeRank takes into account is how often an individual fan interacts with the kind of content you’ve posted. Immediately following EdgeRank’s algorithm change, it appeared that photos were valued more highly than other types of posts, but straight text posts and links have been make a surge as of late. Brands should make sure to vary the kinds of posts to determine which kinds of updates get the most traction with their fans.

2) Vary the times of posts (time decay): Another big factor in the EdgeRank algorithm is time decay: the amount of time between an update is posted and a fan of a brand logs on to see the post. The older a post is, the lower it’s EdgeRank score will be. For this reason, it’s important to experiment with posting at different times of day. Once you know the optimal time of day to post to reach the greatest amount of fans, the better chance you have of increasing your posts’ visibility.

3) Target posts to your demographic (affinity): The third factor in EdgeRank’s formula is affinity. Simply put, affinity is the number of times a fan has interacted via likes, shares, and comments, with your posts. The more often a fan engages with your brand, the more likely she is to see your posts popping up in her timeline. In order to encourage fans to engage with a post, you need to make sure your brand is pushing out content that is targeted and of interest to your fan base. Lack of interest in a brand’s content leads to lack of engagement with a brand’s posts. For example, fashion brands shouldn’t be posting content about model cars, and model car makers shouldn’t push out content on the latest line of Jimmy Choo’s. Know your fan base and give them what they want.

4) Ask for what you want: While EdgeRank has caused many brands to re-think their social media strategy, some of the old marketing axioms hold true, one of the best being the absolute necessity of calls to action. Fans are much more likely to do what you want them to do if you actually ask them to do it. If you want fans to share your content, “share this post!” or “please share!” ” should be clearly stated. Like this post if you agree . . .” is another tried and true strategy for fan engagement. You might be surprised at how effective asking for engagement can be.

5) Have fun: Above all, remember that no one is on Facebook to read an endless stream of brand postings, just like no one watches TV just for the commercials. If brands truly want to stay in their fans’ timelines, they need to be entertaining. Talk about current events, ask questions, take polls, post cartoons. Do whatever it takes to hold the attention and favor of your fans.

Just like in real life, engaging and entertaining others means not talking about yourself all day long. A good rule of thumb to follow is to post about your brand one-third of the time, post about and ask questions of your fans one-third of the time, and post about things that are of interest to both your brand and your fans one-third of the time. While this “Rule of One-Thirds” is easily modifiable to suit your brand’s needs, it’s a good touchstone to keep you on the right path.

Has EdgeRank made it harder for brands to reach their fans via Facebook? Undoubtedly. We’ll probably never return to the days when brands are able to reach 60% of their fans without paying to do so. But, as with all things social media, creativity and flexibility remain the keys to remaining relevant, visible, and worthy of engagement by brand fans.

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Understanding the Cycle of the Hype of a Blog

This guest post is by Nischala Murthy Kaushik.

It’s the start of a new year—the time when organizations work on their business strategies. And when you work on strategy, the one thing you definitely do is get a perspective of two facets of your operation:

internal aspects of your organizationwhat the external world is saying: your customers, your competitors, your partners and of course independent analysts.

One thing that I definitely read this time of the year are analysts’ reports by (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and so on.

I’m always looking for ways to learn, apply, adapt, and leverage new ideas, thoughts, and insights into my blogs. During one such pensive moment, I was mulling over whether there was any evidence of Gatner’s Hype Cycle on blogs. And yes, I believe there is!

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a methodology that’s been used effectively by Gartner since 1995. The Hype Cycle provides a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities.

The Gartner Hype Cycle methodology gives you a view of how a technology or application will evolve over time, providing insight into managing its deployment within the context of your specific business goals.

Each Hype Cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle.

Technology trigger: A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.Peak of inflated expectations: Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.Trough of disillusionment: Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.Slope of enlightenment: More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.Plateau of productivity: Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.

(Check the source of this information for more details.)

If you’ve been blogging, or watching the blogosphere for any length of time, you can likely see how the hype cycle applies to blogging. Let’s step through it in detail.

Every blog is triggered by something. Technology may not always be the trigger, but it is a definite enabler. Had technology not evolved to where it is, blogging may not have existed as it does today. The trigger for a blog could be:

a personal need to express, to capture, to consolidate, to be heard, to create a brand, to share, to learn, to connect, to belong to a community, to leave a legacya business need for new customer acquisition, marketing, branding, customer servicing, customer engagement, or revenue generation.

The key questions you need to answer when you start a blog are:

Why I am starting this blog?Who are my target readers?What do I really want to achieve by blogging?

It’s good to have some degree of clarity on these issues at the outset. Of course, they will change and evolve with time, but you need to have baseline answers in place if you are to move forward and start your blog.

In this phase, the blogger is usually unsure about many things:

Will there be any reader interest in my blog?How do I reach my potential readers?Will I be able to generate meaningful content over a period of time?

The best piece of advice for this phase of the Hype Cycle of a Blog is to test the waters by creating a blog. Keep at blogging, read about blogging, experiment, learn, and evolve. Along the way, you will discover your own commitment and interest towards blogging.

This is the phase in which one of the following happens to your blog:

One or more of your blog posts generates interest, a good amount of readers, shares, and comments. You almost feel like a mini-celebrity in select circles and begin to enjoy the elevated status you’ve achieved.One of more of your blogs is criticized, and you receive negative feedback and comments on your thoughts, and hence the content itself, or the way you’ve presented or written the information.Hardly anyone reads your blogs or ever leaves a comment.

The best piece of advice for bloggers experiencing this phase of the Hype Cycle of a Blog is:

Study, observe, and analyze the blogs you wish your blog was more likeRe-think these questions: Why I am starting this blog?Who are my target readers?What do I really want to achieve by blogging?How should I market my blog to ensure that I reach the right audience?Don’t assume that the past precedents are indications of how the future will pan out in your journey as a blogger.Keep a check on your future expectations of the blog

This next phase in the hype cycle of a blog is probably the most crucial as it will determine how long you will continue blogging. This is the phase when most bloggers are somewhat disenchanted with the results of their blogging efforts, either due to their own lack of interest in blogging, lack of a reader base, lack of interest from the blogosphere, limited shares and comments…

The best piece of advice for this phase of the hype cycle of a blog is:

Don’t let one or two highs or lows determine the future of your blog. Blogging is here to stay, and the way you leverage the power of this medium in your personal or professional context is completely your choice.Re-visit your own reasons for starting your blog and make any course corrections that are required. Following are the key areas that you need to critically evaluate and plan: quality of contentfrequency of postingidentification of your target readersblog marketing.

The reality is that many bloggers quit at this stage, disillusioned with their own capabilities at blogging as well as all the hype that surrounds blogging.

This is the best phase in the hype cycle of a blog—it’s at this point that a blogger has his or her “Eureka” moment and feels that:

they have found their niche in the blogospheretheir creative juices flow incessantly—there’s no dearth of ideas and, most importantly, they can convert anything and everything they see, hear, think, and feel into blog contentthey have found target readersmost importantly, they begin to enjoy blogging.

If you have reached this point, consider yourself lucky. Many congratulations to you!

The sky is the limit for what you can achieve here. You can sell products (like books), personal services (like consulting and advisory services), your own ideas, and other’s products services and ideas. You have the potential to become a cyber-celebrity and most importantly you have the opportunity to create an impact on those who read your blogs.

The only advice for this phase of the hype cycle of a blog is this:

Keep a self-check on your intent for blogging. It may have evolved along the way, but don’t lose sight of your answer to the question, “Why are you blogging?”Value your readers as they complete your blog. Any creative piece of work has a creator and a consumer and their mutual to co-existence is a necessity and reality. A movie has limited value till it is viewed by an audience. In the same light, the blogs you create have limited value till they are consumed by readers.

This is the phase when you mature as a blogger, and your blog matures too—both go to a new elevated level. Your blog has a brand of its own and you have a presence in the blogosphere. Not many bloggers get here simply because they don’t spend enough time asking and answering the key questions from the start of their blogging journey.

If you’re in this phase, you don’t need any advice: you know where to go and how to get there!

Which phase of the hype cycle is your blog in? Leave a comment to let me know.

Nischala Murthy Kaushik currently works at Wipro. She blogs at VERVE: The Quintessence of my Life, Nischala’s Space, Thoughts & Expressions, 12Most.com, PaulWriter, Wipro & Mindblogs. She has completed her MBA from IIMB, one of the premier Business schools in India. She takes pride in being a mother, philosopher, writer, scholar and guru of life for life. You can follow her on Twitter @ nimu9.