How to become more visible on Facebook’s newsfeed (Part one)

Do you ever wonder why some of your friend’s updates show up on your newsfeed and others don’t?

You may just think that certain friends post a lot more than others but this doesn’t have anything to do with why people show up on your Facebook feeds more frequently.

The reason why these people show up on your feed is due to Facebook’s algorithm called “EdgeRank”. EdgeRank uses its algorithm to determine which updates show up on your newsfeed.

How to get your posts to reach all of your followers

To be able to expand your reach on Facebook you will first have to understand how EdgeRank works, just like SEOs need to understand Google’s algorithm to enable them to rank higher.

If you run or manage a Facebook business page, you need to understand these 3 key factors behind Facebook algorithm:

1. Affinity – this factor is based on how often your followers check your Facebook business page. It will also take into account how long they spend on the page.

The longer they stay the higher you are scored so be sure to update your page with new photos and posts regularly.

2. Interaction and engagement – this factor you are scored on your user engagement. This increases when a follower likes, comments or shares one of your posts.

A comment or share involves a higher level of engagement which means EdgeRank will score you higher than if you got a simple “like” which involves very little engagement effort.

3. Timing – this factor is centred on how fast an update receives interaction. If a post receives a lot of interaction in a short period of time, it is more likely to show up on other user’s newfeeds and lead to the post sticking for a longer period of time.

Just like Google, Facebook don’t share too much information regarding their algorithm so we can’t tell you the exact values of these factors.

You can improve the chances of posts showing up on followers newsfeeds by being smarter with updates. Analysis your updates to see what posts seem to be triggering more “likes” and engagement. By doing this you should discover what types of content works and when the best times are to post updates which in turn will maximise your visibility through Facebook.

By Luke Stanley
SEO Consultant