You’ve built your Facebook page. You’ve posted some content… Now, how many people are actually seeing your messages? What can you do to increase your chances of reaching more people and building your community?
Last year, a comScore study found that on average, only 16% of a Facebook page’s fans are reached by branded content even when a brand posts five out of seven days. The key to getting more visibility is to post items that get people interacting with them, since this increases the chance that the content will appear in more users’ news feeds.
I recently attended a webinar, “Understanding Facebook’s Engagement Algorithm,” hosted by Wildfire Interactive and EdgeRank Checker. The two companies presented their joint analysis of over 60,000 brand pages and one million posts, and provided tips on what types of content performed best. Here’s what I learned:
What is EdgeRank?
Facebook has developed a proprietary algorithm called EdgeRank that determines what you see in your news feed. It’s believed to be based on:
- Affinity score. If a fan interacts with a brand more, the higher the affinity score between the brand and its fan.
- Weight. Content types (e.g., create, like, comment, tag) that take more time to engage with have higher weight.
- Time Decay. The older the post is, the less important it becomes.
You’ll want to improve your EdgeRank score with your fans over time to get more exposure for your Facebook page.
So what type of content works best overall?
Photos, of course! Typically photos are eye-catching, carry a higher weight with EdgeRank and are easy to consume. The last attribute is important because users can take a quick look and decide if they like it or want to comment on it. To increase engagement on Facebook, it’s good to keep it simple for those busy social media users!
Does this mean you shouldn’t post status updates, links or videos?
Absolutely not! With some planning, you can incorporate a variety of content and still keep it interesting. And you must focus on quality posts over quantity.
The webinar explained that video and posts with links should always be paired with a written description. By doing this, you can give a short introduction as well as a call to action to tell users what to do with your content (i.e., read more, watch, like, comment, share!). Notably, Facebook users like longer text updates with a minimum of 140 characters — unlike Twitter, where shorter lines are the standard.
What kind of posts work well for your brand, non-profit or local business?
Share with us in the comments!
Good advice, Leilani. Thanks!