Story Bumping: How To Get Your Posts Seen On Facebook
By Rebekah Henson August 7, 2013
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EdgeRank. You might have heard of it. It’s that magic spell Facebook casts to get your posts either seen or buried in the news feed.
Well, almost. Yesterday, Facebook announced a special update to its ranking system to help get your Page’s posts seen more often by more people. This goes along with the news feed’s design overhaul announced earlier this year, which is rolling out to more users.
How EdgeRank has worked
Facebook uses EdgeRank to determine which posts get the top spot in someone’s news feed and which posts don’t. The goal is to show people the posts they want to see and hide the boring content.
What gets shown and what gets buried depends on how followers interact with your posts. Someone who likes and comments on everything you post will see more content from you than someone who doesn’t interact with your posts at all.
EdgeRank looks at three key points to figure out where your Page’s posts fit in people’s feeds:
- Affinity – how connected you are with a certain post. Facebook looks at how often you interact with a friend or Page (by liking, sharing and commenting on posts) to determine Affinity.
- Weight – how popular a post is. The more likes, comments and shares, the greater the Weight.
- Time Decay – how recent and relevant the post is. Facebook doesn’t like “old news” showing up in people’s feeds.
For a more in-depth explanation of how these factors work, check out EdgeRank.net.
It’s been tricky for brands to figure out how to leverage these factors for maximum visibility. Until now…
Facebook’s first EdgeRank update rolling out now
Facebook introduced “Story Bumping” – a way to highlight older posts that might have gotten buried in your followers’ news feeds.
If a post you made early in the day is still getting likes and comments late in the afternoon, Facebook will “bump” your Page’s story back to the top of your followers’ feeds.
In tests Facebook ran, “bumped” stories from Pages got 8% more likes, comments and shares – good news for your business’s Page!
So What Does This Mean For You?
Facebook lays out all the details here. The more you can get people commenting on your Page’s posts, the better!
A few ideas to get you started:
- Ask your fans a question to get them talking.
- Keep it lighthearted – think fun comics or cute pictures to generate more shares.
- Tie your posts to current events to get people liking and commenting.
How do you think Facebook’s Story Bumping will change your current Facebook marketing strategy? Share your ideas in the comments!
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