February 9, 2025

HOW FACEBOOK EDGERANK WORKS

facebook edgerank

Not all posts made by our friends on Facebook appear on the news wall. Otherwise, it would be chaos. Want to know why?  I think you want to know how you can optimize your communication strategy across pages and reach more fans?

In this post I will explain what EdgeRank is, the Facebook algorithm, and how it ranks your posts. But before I begin, let me tell you that there is a lot at stake. Poor communication strategy can mean that your posts don’t reach their destination and therefore cripple all your Facebook marketing efforts.

WHAT IS EDGERANK?

Think about it. Every Facebook user has hundreds of friends and there are dozens of Facebook pages. If any action that was taken was shown in the News Feed, it would be chaos.

Hence came the  EdgeRank algorithm,  which is responsible for the content that appears in our feed. In other words, it is a kind of filter that allows relevant stories to reach the user, which are published on our Timeline and appear on the ticker.

EDGERANK IS BASED ON OBJECTS AND EDGES

OBJECTS

The purpose is the post itself, such as a post or status update, which can contain things like photos, video, text, and links. That is, an object is any piece of content that you post that is likely to appear in the News Feed.

Each object receives a ranking (EdgeRank), which determines if it appears on the User’s news wall. Those objects that have a high EdgeRank appear in mainstream news. If you have a low EdgeRank it will only appear on the ticker.

EDGE

The Edge, however, is any action done on an object. For example, creating an object by itself is an advantage, if you get a comment, a share or a “like” it will be another Edge.

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HOW EDGERANK WORKS

Now comes the interesting part.

EdgeRank processes all information  and ranks it by its relevance to the user.  If relevant the news is sent to the newsfeed and if the demand is not only relevant to the Ticker or where your message will have a short life. In fact, the post will always appear first in the  Ticker  (immediate feedback), and only appears to the user soon after or as Edgerank understands, sometimes it happens to appear first in Feed and then in Ticker.

THE SMART FEED

This new feed detects when you last logged in and displays the most relevant recent stories that occurred in your absence.

If you haven’t logged into Facebook for a while, specifically on the news wall, when you do, you will be presented with several headlines, that is,  the most interesting stories that have occurred since the last time you logged  in, sorted by relevance  and not chronological order.

EDGERANK: HOW TO CALCULATE

Each Edge is rated based on three factors : (1)  affinity,  (2)  weight, and  (3 ) time. The results obtained in each of these factors are multiplied. If an object in relation to a user has more than one Edge, then these values ​​will be added together and the result will be EdgeRank.

THE VARIABLES:

U  – The affinity between the user who owns the News Feed and the creator of Edge. W  – The weight of each Edge type (create an object, comment, “like”, tag, share, etc.). D  – The time of attention to the time in the Edge was created.

EDGERANK CALCULATION EXAMPLE

One of my “fans”, who has a lot of friends on Facebook, logs into his account after 22 hours since I posted some content.

Will that person see my post?

As I said, simply creating an object generates an Edge. Now let’s calculate the result of EdgeRank with 3 variables.

1.  Affinity:  My “fan” often comes to my Facebook page to see what’s new with the audience. Also, when you enter your News Feed and see a post from mine, you often give it a “like” and occasionally leave a comment as well.

Result:  Affinity with the creator of Edge = 5 points.

2.  Weight:  Creating an object containing a link is a lot of weight with Edge because Facebook considers a high degree of interaction likely. However, it is not as important as sharing a video or images.

That said, as I advanced above, weight is likely to also depend on the user’s habits. That is, if in the past they responded positively to links (comments, clicks, “likes”) now they will have more weight.

Result:  Edge weight = 4 points.

3.  Time:  Edge was established 22 hours before the user logged into Facebook and looked at their newsfeed.

Result:  Edge seniority = 2 points.

Edge final result:  5 * 4 * 2 = 40 points.

As this object has only one Edge, its EdgeRank will be  40. The moment the user logs on to Facebook, the algorithm will calculate all the stories that may appear in his newsfeed.

 AFFINITY

You may have noticed that if you often visit a friend’s profile, or like or comment on their photos, after some time, your friend’s updates will appear in your news feeds.

The same thing happens when commenting on the status changes of someone you know. These are the signals that tell Edgerank that you have a higher affinity with this user.

In parts, it’s not good news for companies. For example, if your company visits the profile of someone who is following you, it has no affinity with you, that is, the possibility of content you published on your page appearing in their newsfeed is minimal. However, a comment on a photo could determine a greater affinity between the company and the person’s profile.

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WEIGHT

Interaction weight is a formula that determines which content is more likely to appear in other news sources . Images are more important than a “like” on a company page.

There is a final weight sequence of interactions, but there are more objects that acquire Edgerank and therefore have a different and higher weight. The three types of content that carry more weight than the others are videos, photos, and links. Knowing this, we must change the way we communicate through Facebook, incorporating objects that have a greater weight.

It is interesting to note that the weight of interactions differs from person to person. The simple fact that you browse certain images of a user will be more likely to have them in your news feeds.

It should be borne in mind that just publishing images is not a very strategic thing , because your goal is to reach a large number of people, not just image enthusiasts. Always keep in mind that it is necessary to have diversified strategies that use photos, videos and links.

It is important to realize that Facebook has political use of these themes. There will always be a time when Facebook strategically pushes an item to the most popular and then suddenly pushes it down, the ideal is to try to understand what Facebook is trying to promote.

If variety is important to reach multiple people who have an interest in the content, understanding the importance of different types of objects can potentially increase audiences.

TIME

The third factor takes into account fresh content. Ideally, have recent posts that receive sustained interactions over time. The final element is linked to the Edgerank ranking process, which is the news decay time. As Edgerank is based on affinity and relationship weight, it is quite likely that older news tends to disappear.

It is worth remembering that the algorithm is imprecise, that is, a comment on an old news item can magically make it jump to the top positions, unlike Twitter, which is based only in reverse chronological order (each new tweet reduces the previous ).

The logical implication is that you try to create activities at times when your audience is most likely to use Facebook, this reduces decay time and increases the chance that your content will reach the newsfeed.

“Ultimately, the newsfeed is not just a scroll of news, it is ground to conquer.”

EDGERANK IS NOT THE SAME AS POPULARITY

That a post receives a lot of “likes”, comments or shares does not mean it has a high EdgeRank.

In other words, popularity has your post, i.e. the number of likes and comments received has little to do with it showing up as an entry in your fans’ newsfeed.

Otherwise, publications by celebrities or football clubs, which are used to receiving hundreds of likes and comments, would always be holders of certain types of publications, so the Affinity factor comes into play to control appearances in the feed.

SOME TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR EDGERANK

  • Use photos and video (do not abuse)
  • Encourage interaction without being intrusive
  • Ask questions and be sure to answer
  • create polls
  • Use Open Graph Protocol on your website because not all interactions occur on Facebook
  • Promote your pages/profiles also offline
  • Maintain a real dialogue with other users
  • Insert images or links in updates

CUSTOMIZE YOUR PUBLICATIONS

This is important. Don’t put your Facebook posts on Auto .  Otherwise, your message is likely not to appear in your fans’ newsfeed.

Avoid using external apps  to update your Facebook status. According to  a study  conducted by Applum, using an external application to publish Facebook content reduces the likelihood of fan interactions by an average of 80%. This is because Facebook gives less weight to posts that are made through external applications.

DON’T POST TOO OFTEN

Facebook is not Twitter. According to a study by BuddyMedia, pages that publish content 3 or more times in a day receive 29% fewer interactions from their fans than those that make less than 3 posts.

This is partly normal considering that a Facebook News Feed post usually lasts an average of around 20 hours. This amount varies depending on the Facebook page in question.

BEST TIME TO POST

This is one of the questions that has always bothered me since I started working with social media, managing Facebook pages. It is important to know what time your post will generate the most impressions, because the message has to reach the target audience, and it also depends on the average amount of user interactions with your post.

Last November, a US company called Vitrue posted a 3-year study in which researchers pinpoint when is the  best time to post things on Facebook , and how  user behavior varies between days of the week . You can access the survey by accessing  (in English).·.

Now you know the importance of Facebook EdgeRank. Obviously this is just a broad brush explanation of its basic operation, the details are not in the public domain.Did you find it useful?  Please Share on Facebook by “Liking” or, even better, if you post the link on your Facebook, it will have even more weight. Thank you!