By Alan Coleman on 7 Aug 2013
For quite a while, there has been some mystery surrounding what Facebook Edgerank is, what it does and how it can be manipulated. Many marketing and social media ninja's have relied on hear'say and trial and error in order to make the most of their Facebook pages.
The Murky Waters Become Clearer
Yesterday, Facebook made a new announcement regarding updates to how the Facebook News Feed works. This seems to be the first in a series of what Facebook is calling 'News Feed FYI' posts.
So what has Facebook actually said?
Facebook have confirmed they are updating their News Feed algorithm. This update will reshuffle how stories are arranged on a persons News Feed, depending on how much interaction (likes and comments) they are getting:
"Now organic stories that people did not scroll down far enough to see can reappear near the top of News Feed if the stories are still getting lots of likes and comments."
" For Page owners, this means their most popular organic Page posts have a higher chance of being shown to more people, even if they're more than a few hours old. Advertisers should note, however, that this change does not impact how paid content appears in News Feeds." To be quite honest, I thought this was how things worked anyway? Allow me to illustrate... I have a photograph on my own personal Facebook page. I posted it back in April. As soon as I posted it, it got a whirlwind of likes...
It got around 60 Likes on the first two days (if my aging memory serves me correctly). It obviously started to disappear from News Feeds after that.
Then about a month later, I met some new people at a festival I went to. They added me on Facebook, and were obviously doing the essential bit of Facebook creeping you do to newly acquired Facebook friends. They 'Liked' my very popular photo from the month previously.
What happened after that?
An absolute avalanche of new Likes appeared on my photo, meaning it started floating around News Feeds for another couple of days. This happened again about two weeks later. The photo ended up with 95 Likes.
Note that I did no promotion when I posted the photo. It was an innocent, humble and organic upload from my trusty smartphone.
So is Facebook's announcement anything earth shattering? I don't think so...
...but I like a good argument!
What business owners should take from this...
OK so even if this whole thing is new to you, there is something to be learned from this. Now more than ever, business owners need to place increased emphasis on sharing posts that are Likeable and Shareable, and that are likely to attract a flurry of comments. As this happens, you posts will land in your fans News Feeds more often, meaning reach metrics should increase accordingly. With more people seeing your posts, there is more potential for interaction. It's a glorious cycle. If you are looking for more information on the new Facebook Announcement (taking a closer look at what Facebook is calling Story Bumping and Last Actor), the Sprout Social blog has a very good summary. It will be interesting to see how often these News Feed FYI posts on Facebook algorithm updates are posted, and how much detail is included in them. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled. Siobhán
