Facebook Edge rank is dead!

EDGE RANK is the name commonly given to the ALGORITHM that Facebook uses to determine what should be displayed in a user’s NEWS FEED. As of 2011. Facebook has stopped using the EDGE RANK term INTERNALLY to refer to its NEWS FEED RANKING ALGORITHM.

EDGE RANK used to be straight forward with 3 main components and their subsets. Now Facebook has a new algorithm that takes into account more than 100K factors in addition to the original three 

Analysis of the Internet Retailer 500 Facebook Pages shows engagement sunk 27% in 2013 vs 2012, and rumors abound that Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is increasingly hiding Page posts to force marketers to pay for exposure in the News Feed.

The average user’s network generates 1500 updates per day, but only a fraction of them appears in the News Feed. More individual status updates means more competition for organic slots

Facebook never revealed all ranking factors, only some. Researchers, surveyors  and analysts tried to figure out some others

The old formula

Text

The latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends. 

Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types

Context 

Device type and Internet connection speed also affect what makes it to the Feed. For example, slow connections may be shown less video, or older feature phones “lighter” content.

Freshness

Post recency is a weighting factor, but unlike Twitter, the News Feed isn’t ruled by chronology. If you’ve posted 6 times from your brand Page, it doesn’t mean your most recent post has a better chance of appearing in a Feed than your prior posts that day. It comes down to what Facebook determines as most interesting or relevant to the individual based on last actor, story bumping or context.

Viewing Other Timelines

“Nothing is off the table when we’re looking at what we should show users,” Backstrom –Facebook news feed manager- says. “It can be clicking on ads or looking at other timelines. It doesn’t have to be just what the user interacts with in the News Feed.”

Clicking On Ads

The News Feed algorithm is completely separate from the algorithm that decides what ads to show, when to show ads, and where to show them. But how a user interacts with Facebook ads can influence what shows in the News Feed.

Post Types

The News Feed algorithm takes into account the type of posts that each user tends to like. Users that often interact with photo posts are more likely to see more photo posts in the News Feed, and users that tend to click more on links will see more posts with links.

In other words, Facebook Page owners that continually publish one type of post are likely not having those posts seen by fans that interact with other types of posts.

Story bumping

Older posts, even if they’ve been viewed in a Feed already, get a second, third or even fourth chance to appear in the Feed if engagement is strong – especially if a user’s friends have commented on, Liked or Shared the post.

Last actor

Facebook looks at the last 50 interactions a user has made to gauge what type of content and/or Pages and friends he or she is most likely to want to see in the Feed. You’ll likely enjoy a brief boost in a user’s Feed after he or she interacts with one of your posts, but you’ll fade away again if another 50 interactions displace you. Or, your video post may be more likely to organically appear to fans who have recently engaged with similar content.

Link Preview with Text

Use text and links with a preview to get the most visibility. Facebook announced that this type of link would be given more competitive reach than other formats

Click-bait Content

The same day that Facebook announced the algorithm change above, they released an interesting statistic: 80% of the time, users prefer headlines that help them determine whether they want to click on a link, as opposed to those that encourage people to “click to see more, without telling them much information about what they will see.”

User Engagement With Updates

Facebook is also now identifying whether something is click-bait by monitoring engagement with the update itself. The network explains that if the number of people engaging (liking, commenting on or sharing an update) is significantly lower than the number of people clicking, it may indicate that the content is low-value.

You are better off using the Share feature than dropping a link into a status update

Ideal Facebook Post Type

The ideal Facebook post type for SHARES is the PHOTO, links come in as second

 

The ideal Facebook post type for Interactions is the video, Photos come in as second

 

I would like to thank Hadi Al Karmi for gathering the information in this post! Sources for this article has been provided by Quintly, Fast Company, Social Bakers, BufferApp and Track Social