Register
Blog
Facebook EdgeRank: What marketers need to know
By Kelvin Newman on 3rd May 2012
It's been nine months since I wrote the original Ultimate Guide to the Facebook Edgerank Algorithm. I was amazed to see the reaction to the piece.
It clearly seemed to strike a chord as it went on to be the most popular guest post on Econsultancy in 2012.
But a lot has changed since then in the world of Facebook. As I'm currently putting together a presentation for the upcoming Econsultancy Digital Shorts event in Manchester on Edgerank and other social algorithms, now seemed the perfect time to revisit the piece to update and expand it.
What is EdgeRank?
EdgeRank is one of the most important algorithms in marketing. Despite this, very few people have heard of it and fewer still can claim that they fully understand it.
EdgeRank is the name of the algorithm which Facebook uses to determine what appears in their users’ news feeds. The news feed is Facebook’s ‘Killer App’. There is a plethora of information available to Facebook users, and the newsfeed is the order in which it appears.
It determines not only which of your connections is the most important to you, meaning their content appears most frequently, but also which kinds of content should appear higher than others.
For anyone seeking to market a product or service on Facebook it’s essential you understand how this algorithm works.
Understanding the rules of the algorithm and changing your tactics to reflect the system can make the difference between a business changing campaign and an embarrassing failure. Yet despite its importance very little has been written about the algorithm.
Unlike many of the algorithms that are changing marketing, Edgerank is actually not that sophisticated, but don’t let its relative simplicity make you underestimate the influence knowledge of the subject will have on your tactical choices.
Its importance is even more significant in that it is a precursor to many newer social algorithms like Google+ or Twitter’s Top Tweets. By successfully understanding how Facebook aggregate, sort and prioritise social content we can better anticipate how other alternatives might develop.
Additionally, as social signals become part of the SEO landscape, understanding how Facebook deal with social signals is hugely helpful in grasping where natural search algo’s might be heading.
Read the full story at eConsultancy.com including the following topics:
By Kelvin Newman on 3rd May 2012
It's been nine months since I wrote the original Ultimate Guide to the Facebook Edgerank Algorithm. I was amazed to see the reaction to the piece.
It clearly seemed to strike a chord as it went on to be the most popular guest post on Econsultancy in 2012.
But a lot has changed since then in the world of Facebook. As I'm currently putting together a presentation for the upcoming Econsultancy Digital Shorts event in Manchester on Edgerank and other social algorithms, now seemed the perfect time to revisit the piece to update and expand it.
What is EdgeRank?
EdgeRank is one of the most important algorithms in marketing. Despite this, very few people have heard of it and fewer still can claim that they fully understand it.
EdgeRank is the name of the algorithm which Facebook uses to determine what appears in their users’ news feeds. The news feed is Facebook’s ‘Killer App’. There is a plethora of information available to Facebook users, and the newsfeed is the order in which it appears.
It determines not only which of your connections is the most important to you, meaning their content appears most frequently, but also which kinds of content should appear higher than others.
For anyone seeking to market a product or service on Facebook it’s essential you understand how this algorithm works.
Understanding the rules of the algorithm and changing your tactics to reflect the system can make the difference between a business changing campaign and an embarrassing failure. Yet despite its importance very little has been written about the algorithm.
Unlike many of the algorithms that are changing marketing, Edgerank is actually not that sophisticated, but don’t let its relative simplicity make you underestimate the influence knowledge of the subject will have on your tactical choices.
Its importance is even more significant in that it is a precursor to many newer social algorithms like Google+ or Twitter’s Top Tweets. By successfully understanding how Facebook aggregate, sort and prioritise social content we can better anticipate how other alternatives might develop.
Additionally, as social signals become part of the SEO landscape, understanding how Facebook deal with social signals is hugely helpful in grasping where natural search algo’s might be heading.
Read the full story at eConsultancy.com including the following topics:
- Why Edgerank?
- Affinity
- Edge Weight
- Recency
- Things you can do to increase your EdgeRank
- Edgerank in 2012
- The Ticker
- Explicit statements of Affinity
- What About TimeLine?
