content marketing strategies conference: bill flitter how to leverage facebook's newsfeed...

How to Leverage Facebook's Newsfeed Algorithm

by: Bill Flitter CEO/Dlvr.it

Agenda

Dissecting EdgeRank

Secrets to Improve Your EdgeRank

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Dissecting EdgeRank1.

Should We Even Care?

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

600M Facebook Users• Clicks ‘Like’ Button 9x/Month • Writes 25 Comments/Month• Fans 2 Pages/Month• Is a Member of 12 Groups• Spends 55 Minutes/Day

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

What is EdgeRank?

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

EdgeRank is to Facebook as PageRank is to Google

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

EdgeRank scores each and every piece of content in your News Feed

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

High EdgeRank = visibility Low EdgeRank = darkness

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

EdgeRank Formula

• Affinity: how often a fan views/interacts with your page & vice versa

• Weight: total ‘likes’ + comments

• Timeliness: more recent a post, higher it ranks

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

2 Flavors of the News Feed

• Top News: the most interesting content posted by friends (default view)

• Most Recent: sometimes referred to as the ‘live feed.’ actions of your friends in real-time

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

Top News: 60% or 400M members see this view

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

Most Recent (live feed): 98% of updates appear in this view

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Most Recent (live feed): Default setting in Facebook Mobile used by 200M members

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Facebook Mobile users are twice as active as website users

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Facebook Groups: Updates don’t appear in Most Recent or Top News Feeds

Dissecting EdgeRank1.

The Older the Wiser: Established pages hold more weight than newly created pages

Dissecting EdgeRank

Agenda

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Secrets to Improve Your EdgeRank

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Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

How does your content get visibility on Facebook?

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

ERO is the new SEO

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Maximum Exposure: Brands should create a Page (vs. a Group) to maximize visibility in News Feed

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Engage with Fans• The more you are engaged, the higher the

EdgeRank• Follow your fans’ friends• Tag people in posts and photos using ‘@’

sign before the person’s name or business - name drop

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

They like me, they like me not… Add the ‘Like’ button to your website to pick up more fans

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Roll out the Red Carpet… Customize the welcome page and try to convert users to ‘likers’

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Post Ideas• Start a post with a question• Try “fill in the ____” posts

• Ask for comments and likes

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

The Daily Beast ExperimentOne month experiment with Facebook’s News Feed

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Findings: Having friends who stalk you WILL help your popularity

Action: Promote your Facebook page outside of Facebook to bring attention to your content inside Facebook

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Findings: Comments increasevisibility within friend’s feed

Action: Encourage comments - start posts with questions, try fill-in-the blank statements, create compelling content

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Findings: Links trump status updates

Action: Auto-distribute your blog posts or, curate relevant content - become a publisher and an editor

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Summary • Promote your Facebook Page

outside of Facebook• Encourage comments• Schedule content regularly

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Vitrue Research Reviewed 32,000 Posts viewed by 40M Facebook Fans over 3 Months

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words:Post with photos receive highest weight and engagement (22% more engagement than video) followed by videos, links, status updates

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Early Bird… Content posted before noon gets 65% more engagement than posts after noon

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

TGIF… Friday posts generate the most engagement while Saturday and Sunday posts have the least engagement (Monday & Tuesday are only slightly behind Friday in terms of engagement)

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Summary • Create Pages (vs. Groups)• Participate with Fans • Schedule posts with photos on

Friday before Noon

Secrets to Improve EdgeRank2.

Time will tell… Only thing that is constant is change

AppendixA.

Sources: • Mashable Facebook Factbook

http://mashable.com/2010/02/10/facebook-growth-infographic/

• Virtue - Anatomy of Facebook Post whitepapgerhttp://vitrue.com/blog/2010/09/21/anatomy-of-a-facebook-post-vitrue’s-data-behind-effective-social-media-

marketing/

• The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-18/the-facebook-news-feed-how-it-works-the-10-biggest-

secrets/

• Mari Smith - Tools to Measure EdgeRankhttp://www.marismith.com/tool-tracks-your-facebook-edgerank-score/

• Social Media Biz - How Facebook News Feed Workshttp://www.socialmedia.biz/2011/02/07/how-facebook-news-feeds-work/