You may have never even heard of EdgeRank, but if you’re on Facebook, you look as it’s results everyday. Or at least everyday that you tune in to your Facebook account.
To sum it up quickly and succinctly, EdgeRank is to Facebook what SEO is to the internet. Your visibility and effectiveness on Facebook is a direct result of your EdgeRank. So if you use Facebook at all for business, this is critical to understand.
Where Do I See EdgeRank on Facebook?
Well, you see it everyday when you bring up your Facebook Homepage. As you probably have figured out, there’s two distinct ways to view the information on your homepage: Top News and Most Recent.
The “Most Recent” brings you the most information, but also an onslaught of (some might say) useless information. This is the feed that shows every single activity of every friend you have on Facebook. It tells you who has “LIKED” what, who has “Friended” whom, who has been tagged in a photo and just about every other Facebook activity of every one of your friends. The information can be almost like a Twitter Feed in that the amount of information is so massive that it becomes less useful.
“Top News” on the other hand is a selective collection of just what has been deemed the most interesting or interactive posts or activities. Therein lies the application of your EdgeRank.
Why is EdgeRank Important?
EdgeRank is the algorithm that Facebook uses to decide what goes in the “Top News” feed. You can learn more in this great write up by TechCrunch, but simply stated, your EdgeRank is what puts you in or keeps you out of the “Top News” feed.
Here’s the most important information about the “Top News” feed. First of all it’s the default view. It’s the view that everyone automatically gets whenever they log into Facebook. So naturally, it’s the place where you want your content to show up if you have any interest in developing relationships with potential customers or clients.
So What is an Edge?
An Edge is a Facebook term. An Edge is an interaction with your content: A comment, a ‘LIKE’, or a Share. The simple creation of a piece of content is the first Edge. Remember that Google cares about content, keywords, relativity of content to keywords and popularity via links. Facebook, on the other hand, is all about engagement and interaction. This key difference is important to know if you expect any results from Facebook more than just keeping up with your friends and playing Mafia Wars.
EdgeRank is the SEO of Facebook.
How is EdgeRank Calculated?
EdgeRank is an algorithm based on a mathematical formula that rewards interaction and engagement with your content. Facebook engineers Ruchi Sanghvi and Ari Steinberg laid out the components of this formula at its recent f8 developer conference. According to them, EdgeRank is a function of three critical and measurable aspects of your content.
a) Affinity between creator of the Edge and viewer
b) Some weighting by the type of Edge (like, share, comment)
c) How long ago the Edge was created.
It looks like this for all of you math wizards:
I know, it looks complicated, so let me give you the simple answer!
In order to enhance the likelihood that your content will show up in the “Top News” feed, you need to create content that people will ENGAGE WITH and you need to create it with some regularity. Learn to create content that people will Comment on, LIKE or Share.
Social Media: The Future
So here’s the “bottom line”. If you’re serious about online marketing of your product or business, you need to get your head wrapped around the concept of EdgeRank. It’s going to be the next wave that will leave SEO in the background.
Think of it this way. Is it better to spend time doing keyword research, developing keyword-rich content that sits favorably within the search engine paramaters that might drive a few vaguely interested prospects to your website or would it be better to spend time developing relationships with friends, friends of friends, partners, referral sources, potential and past clients with EdgeRank-savvy content on sites like Facebook?
Your thoughts?
It's a Good Life! . . . .
