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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