Get the Edge: tips to get noticed

- December 15, 2014

Many brands use tricks in order to gain points in EdgeRank.


EdgeRank is the Facebook algorithm that decides which stories appear in each user's newsfeed. To guarantee your fans will be seeing your post, it should score high on three main factors: affinity, weight and time decay.


  • Affinity is related to how much your fan interacts with you as a brand
  • Weight is measured by the general engagement with the actual content
  • Time decay is essentially related to how old your post is

One of the “tricks” is simply to post continuously to catch up on the Time Decay factor, many times with lower quality content. How does this affect users' perception?

A recent survey by Facebook has shown that people are getting annoyed by too many promotional posts. This has pushed Facebook to announce that new restrictions will be imposed on posts which are proving to be too promotional and less creative based on how many people engage with or hide these posts.

So unless you come up with good enough content that boosts affinity and engages your fans, you will lower your chances of them seeing your posts, not to mention how “annoying” posts could also affect your brand image in general…

Here are a few tips you can use to keep your EdgeRank high without falling into the over-promotional or low quality content trap:

  • Post photos and videos, these initially get more weight in EdgeRank than links, followed by plain text. Nevertheless, interesting content which generates users’ engagement can still catch up.
  • Call to action or call to like! Post a thought and ask people to assess it by pressing the “like” button.
  • Interact: Ask open questions to trigger replies, actively moderate and respond to these replies creating interactions (It it worth knowing that comments have a higher worth with Edgerank than “likes”).
  • Know your fans: Identify the most engaged, the thought leaders and tag them in your posts to strengthen loyalty.
  • Post at strategic times, when your fans are more likely to engage.
In short, as long as you keep your fans keen on your content, Facebook will detect their reactions and rank you accordingly.

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Localise! Don't translate.

- June 17, 2014

The Internet has made the world a smaller place. In many ways the 'online experience' is becoming more homogenous as well. These facts mean that many businesses don't perceive geographical or language barriers as being as high as in the past. This is a false sense of security that can lead to catastrophic mistakes. Coming back from a team hike in the mountains near Madrid, we saw this shocker:

 

If you don't get why this is funny, then it's a perfect example of how challenging language and social differences can be. A non-native English speaker - even one with a high level of proficiency - will not necessarily get the sexual double-meaning. A native speaker would have trouble reading it any other way.

Language is only one part of the equation. Adapting messaging to different markets is just as necessary. There are significant differences between the approaches needed to effectively market to different nationalities. This is evident even between countries which speak the same language and share a lot of cultural history.

Running ads in different languages is hard (well, actually it's hard to do well in one language). The most common approach is to translate the words, something which often ends up with very weak copy. A cerebral tag-line may work well for a French-speaker, but die a death with an American used to a more direct approach.

The most important thing you can do when thinking about other markets is to never think about it as a translation job. If you don't take a top-down approach to ensuring your whole message is right, you run the risk of failing; you know how important it is to get your text right on your website and ads in your own language. Don't forget, it is just an important in every other language.

Localise! Don't translate.

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Meet the CurrencyFairy!

- March 10, 2014


We love working with clients who really have something to shout about . CurrencyFair have developed an innovative platform for currency exchange which we think will make a big impact in the marketplace. We think their marketing team has made a good call not to try and focus on the nitty-gritty of the mechanics of FX, but instead wrapped a core 'save money' message in a truly off-the-wall ad.


Simple messaging, brand memorable and funny. We're not sure how they convinced one of the most recognisable faces in rugby to do this (or if the person who first talked to him had the guts to suggest it face-to-face in the first place!) The ad is running on TV in Ireland and the UK and we are working with CurrencyFair to market their service to specific target groups of expats in various countries.

The initial idea was to go with some very simple ad units with strong branding and short message. When we saw their new campaign, we made something a lot more fun which should provide much higher impact for the brand and drive more attention to the online ad.


Project outline: Creatives include all sizes in standard universal ad package. Will be in three languages, which will include localisation of messaging specific to each language. Creatives have several initial variants (speed, message, layout) and will be A/B tested to select optimal performance units.

James Kielty from CurrencyFair commented;
It's been great working with Expat Audience, everyone here was impressed how they quickly came up with an online campaign which fits well with the brand. We're excited about taking our message out to a wider market in more countries.

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