1. The
Facebook
Edgerank
Uncovering the formula of the Facebook News Feed
CHRISTEL QUEK
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST
Twitter: @ladyxtel
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2. What is the Facebook The algorithm which display the relevant
Edgerank?
content from users and pages is called Edgerank.
According to o cial statistics released by
To explain it, here are some initial
Facebook, the average Facebook user has 130
definitions.
friends. The News Feed is the first page that users
will see upon logging into the site. Thus, it is
Any content which is generated on your
important to optimise the objects -status updates,
News Feed is called an Object. An Object can be a
photos, videos, links- which users will find more
status update, an external link shared by your
relevant to their interests, and encourage greater
friend or a Page, a photo, and so on. Whenever a
interactivity and time spent on Facebook.
user interacts with an Object with comments, likes,
Facebook has ensured that the News Feed only
and tags, an “Edge” is created. The Rank of the
displays a set of updates generated from certain
“Edge”, i.e. the Edgerank, is thus determined by
friends or pages. Furthermore, these News Feed
the` interaction frequency that a user has with a
updates only seem to be generated from the same
friend’s Object.
circle each day.
This interaction frequency comprises of
three components - an a nity score between a
viewing user and the edge creator, the weight
given to a particular edge, and the time decay
factor based on how long ago was the edge
created. The a nity score between the user and
the creator of the object will naturally be higher if
the user interacts with the creator’s profile often.
This includes checking the creator’s profile, leaving
comments and likes, and sending Facebook
messages. There is a measured “weight” of each
Edge- for example, a comment carries more
weight compared to a Like. Lastly, the older an
Edge is, the less important this Edge will become.
In short, an Object from a friend or a page
Diagram 1: A Facebook “Edge” of Created is more likely to show up on your News Feed if a
Content user has been interacting with them often recently.
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3. trump over Likes as well, and all these will
Furthermore, “popular” objects which many of significantly increase the weight of an Edge.
your friends have been interacting with recently
will also show up on your News Feed. Furthermore, times and dates matter to
Facebook. The most recent updates will get more
“prime time” on a News Feed compared to
Strategic Observations about updates that happened in the past.
Edgerank
From this insight, a strategic observation is
that Edgerank clearly indicates the importance of
bringing Facebook users to a friend’s profile or
p a g e re g u l a r l y to i n c re a s e v i s i b i l i t y a n d
consequently, the a nity score. Moreover, as
Facebook favours interactivity, it is important to
engage and encourage conversations on objects to
increase visibility on the News Feed. This
highlights to Facebook that your Object is
important when there are multiple interactions
with it.
Another strategic observation is that
“stalking” a particular profile or page does improve
the a nity score in Edgerank. The more your
profile gets visited, the higher the Edgerank
performance of your profile, which subsequently
increases the propensity of your a nity score and
ensure that your updates hit the “Top News”
stories in the Facebook News Feed.
Furthermore, to increase exposure to
Facebook users, the weight of the Edge needs to
be taken into serious consideration. Media such as
Photos and Videos are preferred to Links, and
Links are preferred to Status Updates. Comments
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4. Maximising Edgerank for
Brands
(i) Quality of Fans (ii) Quality of Content
While some brands view the numbers of
No matter the original objective of
“fans” that their brand’s fan page gets as of an
establishing a brand’s presence on Facebook,
absolute importance, a more precise indicator
every brand would want to ensure that their
would be the quality of fan interactions that a
updates would receive maximum exposure and
Brand’s fan page has on Facebook. There are sites
coverage. To do that, the said brand needs to stay
which o er “Fan-buying” services for Facebook
on top of the News Feed and have a constantly
Fan Pages, but it is more important to attract
high Edgerank with their fans. A Brand’s strategy
quality fans ; rather than just the mere quantity of
on Facebook is to consider every single fan
them. To ensure a continued quality of fans and a
interaction as an opportunity to get insights from
strong fan base even if the fan page was to
their potential customers and learning more about
disappear one day is to ensure that the Page will
them. Thus, to achieve a high Edgerank and after
continue to deliver upon the fan’s expectations of
taking the formula into consideration, the goal is to
the Brand on the page, and to continually engage
post content, polls, and questions that would
with them. In a way, the Edgerank is built upon a
constantly engage with the fans connected to the
certain “Word-of-Mouth” component - with more
brand. With a greater variety and engagement
organic likes and comments on Objects, the
with fans, fans would leave more “likes” and
objects would have a higher propensity to appear
comments on your brand’s Objects and thus, your
on top of the News Feed, and subsequently
brand’s fan page will get increased visibility and
attracting more quality fans to participate and
exposure on the News Feed. There would be a
engage with the brand in a multiplier e ect.
multiplier e ect as the News Feed will be more
likely to show a popular Object which has been
commented upon multiple times by mutual friends.
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5. (iii) Timing
It is also clear that timing plays a crucial
role in determining the maximum exposure for
your Brand’s object on the News Feed. There
should be a clear content strategy with a regular
schedule which allows the brand to post content,
such as status updates and photos, at least once or
twice a day. Posting back-to-back updates too
often will definitely hinder the ability to get certain
content noticed by your fans, and the distribution
of fans to post ratio will be uneven.
Conclusion for Brands
To f u l l y u n d e r s t a n d a n d m a x i m i s e
Edgerank, brands must return to the objectives for
establishing a presence on Facebook. One of the
key ideas is to encourage fans to build a buzz
around the brand’s page, share it with their peers,
enhance the value of the brand’s presence on
Facebook, and pushing it to be a talking point on
top of the News Feeds. The presence of Edgerank
is thus a clear indication that the power in making
or breaking a brand’s popularity and success on
Facebook lies in the hands of the consumers, and
not solely the brand itself.
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6. Appendix
Diagram 2: Amplifying the Edgerank
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