We think its time to talk about Facebook Edgerank and how it can influence the visibility your band gets on Facebook.

Unless, like me, you spend an inordinate amount of time inside the Facebook developer forums you probably haven’t heard of Edgerank even though its The Secret Sauce That Makes Facebook’s News Feed Tick

What is Edgerank?

Edgerank is the system Facebook uses to determine what a user sees in their News Feed – if it displayed everything that your friends shared, there’s a good chance you’d be overwhelmed. So what you get to see in your News Feed (and your fans News Feed) is dictated by EdgeRank.

How Does Edgerank Work?

When an existing fan stops interacting with your fan page, the page updates that you send out begin to slowly suppress in said fans News Feed – meaning they start seeing less of the cool stuff you’re posting.

Although it seems only Facebook insiders know for sure (they guard this formula like their lives depend on it) it is generally accepted amongst techies that the timeline for this ‘news feed suppression’ can be completed within just 7-14 days and is fully dependent on the number of friends the person has, the number of pages the user likes, and the frequency of posts by both groups.

There are a number of variables that influence Facebook Edgerank:

• Object: News Feed items – status updates, links, photos, comments, likes etc. And each time you create an object your are initiating an ‘Edge’.
• Affinity: The Affinity Edge is a measure how YOU interact with your fans and likers.
• Weight: The Weight Edge is determined by the number of likes, shares, comments etc that your updates receive. Making this the most important of the variables.
• Time Decay: Needless to say no one likes to see the same old news so as time passes older news is suppressed.

How Can We Influence Edgerank?

If any of your fans stop interacting with your page past the estimated two weeks, they will stop seeing any of your updates from that point on – but don’t fret! You can still reach out to all your fans at once by sending a message quickly and easily via the Send An Update feature.

How To Send A Fan Page Update:

You can send a fan page update by going to your page, and clicking on “EDIT PAGE” in the upper right corner of your fan page (you must be logged in as an administrator to see the edit page link) > click on “RESOURCES” in the left column > then click on “SEND AN UPDATE” where you’ll then be taken to this screen:

Here you enter your message and send to all your fans at once or you have the option of targeting a group of fans by country, town, age & gender – great for when you’re promoting a live event. Powerful stuff.

Suggestions for what to post:

• Post content that inherently attracts interaction
• Encourage users to ‘like’ your content
• Use photos & videos as often as possible

WARNING: Do not go into a frenzied spam overkill!

Treat the Facebook Send An Update feature with respect and keep track of how often you send out updates. Think of it as topping up – we recommend one a month and only if you have something to say. As you know already that your fans are unlikely to respond if you keep posting links on your Facebook page to buy your music, tickets, merch over and over again (and if you dont know that, you better start learning!).

Try to think of EdgeRank is the formulaic expression of this idea; if you don’t post engaging content, you increase the likelihood that none of your posts will be included in your fans’ News Feed. So if you think you are wasting time with posts that aren’t directly related to your band, photos, film, art, you are actually optimising for EdgeRank so your future “CHECK OUT OUR NEW SHIT!” posts get seen!

Hope this helps with your Direct-to-Fan Facebook marketing, if you have questions about this topic consider leaving a comment.

Cheers,
Stevo