Edgerank in the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what appears on their users news feeds.  This algorithm identifies which of your connections are most important, so their content appears more on your news feed, but more importantly, the order of the content.

There are three aspects to the algorithm – Affinity, Edge weight and timeliness.

How Does the Algorithm Work?

Facebook calls any content or interaction an ‘edge’ , so any status update, photo share, video share, like on a Facebook fan page or  comment on a Facebook fan page, is an edge. So the news feed is a collation of the most important edges for your account.

Affinity – How close friends are you?

This is a measure of how friendly you are. Sure you’ve noticed if you comment on a friends status update and all of a sudden they appear on your news feed loads or perhaps you were looking up some old school friends?

The more people comment on your fan page, the high up the news feeds your postings will go.

Edge Weight –  How important are content updates?

Facebook assigns different weight to different content or edges. Photos are more important than likes. The three highest are videos, photos and links. LIkes carry very little weighting, as it’s only an indication of affinity, rather than an actual action which demonstrates a closer friendship.

On your Facebook Fan Page you should be posting higher weighted content.

Edge weighting accumulates over time as well, as lots of likes on a posting will boost the weighting of it.  Anything content which stimulates debate or discussion soon appears

Timeliness

Newer content will appear in the newsfeed vs older content (but if the older content accumulates more likes, it may well appear). So posting content when your audience are online OR if the topic is current is important.

Conclusion

When working on boosting your page Edgerank, think about the content strategy behind it. Planning and devising a content strategy that boost likes and fan interaction is key to boosting your site’s Edgerank so it appears on as many fans pages as high as possible.

This strategy cannot be a one off, but needs to be an ongoing campaign.  As soon as the interactions drop off, the Edgerank drops and so does the reach of the news.

How do you  boost your Fan Pages Edgerank? What has worked for you on your fan page?