Noticed that your brand’s Facebook posts are a bit sickly—that they just simply aren’t reaching many of your fans? Chances are you’re suffering effects from changes made in September to what’s called the “EdgeRank algorithm,” the formula that determines how (and if) your post will appear in your fans’ newsfeeds.  As a direct result of that algorithm change, many brands experienced a significant drop in organic reach of their posts.  Sound mysterious? We’ll break it down for you, and give you some tips on what you can do to shake off a bad case of the EdgeRank flu.

Every piece of content or interaction on Facebook is an “edge.” EdgeRank looks at three factors to rank content: Affinity, Weight and Time Decay.

* Affinity: Your affinity score is based on how friendly you are with your fans.  If a fan doesn’t comment, share or like your post, your updates start disappearing from his or her stream. Improving your affinity score can only be done through engagement.

* Weight: Weight is a basic formula that determines what types of content are more likely to be shared and appear in news feeds than others. Three types of content are known to have a high weight rating: videos, photos and links.

* Time Decay: Newer, fresher content will be given priority.

With the objective of improving the quality of the News Feed, Facebook is now penalizing pages that had an above average rate of complaints, dramatically increasing the weight of negative feedback. Negative feedback includes clicking Hide, Report as Spam, Block, or clicking the X on a post.

The intent of the algorithm change is to combat spam pages and further personalize the content we see. Negative feedback given to brands in the past impacts Affinity levels today. Upon the initial algorithm change, many pages which had previously received negative feedback were immediately limited in organic reach. This caused an initial dramatic drop-off, creating a need to combat a low score with enhancements to the content strategy.

What’s a poor, sick brand to do?  Here are some quick tips to get EdgeRank healthy:

* Tools. Sign up for EdgeRank Checker.  This free tool offers various levels of analytics to help you evaluate how your posts will affect your EdgeRank score.

* Minimize Negative Feedback. Use the analytic tools to evaluate what types of content you’ve been posting have been receiving negative feedback—hides, spam reports, etc.  Then you’ll want to evaluate minimizing those types of posts.

* Maximize Reach. Use the analytic tools to discover what types of posts have been performing the best in terms of reach.  For one client, we recently discovered plain status updates—no pictures or links—were being shared wildly and improving their EdgeRank score.  So we’ve added more of those into the content calendar mix.

All of this sound a little complicated still?  Then give us a shout.  We’re happy to give you an EdgeRank Check-Up—a process that takes about 4 weeks from initial intake to recommended changes and optimization.  Think of it as a little Metaverse Chicken Soup for your Facebook soul.

JP Buchmeyer, VP Digital Engagement
Jp [at] metaversemodsquad.com

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