the complete facebook success formula every marketer should know

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The Complete Facebook Success Formula Every
Marketer Should Know
Posted by:Augie Ray
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Posted November 7, 2012
At the f8 Developer Conference in April 2010, two Facebook engineers shared Facebook's
EdgeRank formula, and since then most marketers have misinterpreted how to apply it to their
own brand challenges. Simply put, this is Facebook's equation, not your brand's. This formula
reveals how Facebook det ermines what will appear in users' newsfeeds, but it does not tell your
brand what is needed to drive business success on Facebook.
What Facebook shared about EdgeRank is important for marketers to understand, but it is merely
a portion of the Facebook brand success formula. It is a little like the owner's manual for your car,
which is helpful for learning how to operate the vehicle but does not t ell you how to successfully,
safely and efficient ly get from point A to point B. Marketers must recognize EdgeRank, both for
what it is and what it is not.
What is EdgeRank?
EdgeRank is Facebook's secret sauce. It is designed to make the
site as useful, engaging and sticky as possible. Its purpose is not
to enhance marketers' experiences but users' (which ultimately
benefits Facebook itself with more traffic and ad revenue, of
course.)
You are probably aware that when you sign on to Facebook,
your newsf eed is not simply a stream of every friend's and
brand's posts in reverse chronological order. Facebook knows
that you would not f ind a raw stream of posts very interesting
you are fonder of some friends than others, and not everything
your f riends post is equally appealing and so Facebook filters your newsfeed. Based on your past

interactions on the platform, Facebook knows who and what you find most relevant, and it applies
this knowledge to make your newsfeed as interesting as possible. (For the record, I think
Facebook's current EdgeRank formula does a good job, but it has a long way to go before it's
filtering feels as natural and accurate as it should for users.)
To understand how EdgeRank works, you first must realize that everything that occurs on
Facebook is an "edge" in the parlance of Facebook. Which of your friends' edges you see in your
newsfeed and which ones Facebook omits depend on three factors:
Ue: Affinit y between user and edge creator: Facebook monitors how much you interact with
friends and brands. Those people and brands t hat earn your engagement liking, sharing,
commenting and so on are more likely to appear in your newsfeed. The people and brands you
tend to ignore eventually disappear because Facebook (correctly) interprets that you simply do
not find their cont ent interesting.
Right off the bat, you can see the enormous challenge for brands: How can a brand possibly be as
interesting t o a user as his or her own friends? You can see this challenge demonstrated within
your own personal newsfeed you are presented with posts made by your friends much more
often than from brands you have liked. In fact, many of the brands you have "liked" never appear in
your newsf eed. This is not (just) Facebook's way to encourage brands to use paid sponsored
posts to increase visibility; instead, it is the reality of your own Facebook habits. You find the
people in your life more interesting than brands, and Facebook recognizes and reflects your
authentic affinity.
We: Weight for this edge: Every one of us reacts with different types of content diff erent ly you
may love videos, I may enjoy photos and someone else may prefer text . This means each content
type has a different "weight" for each user. In addition, as an "edge" gains comments and likes, it
gains more "weight;" thus, as others interact with an edge, it increases t he likelihood that edge will
appear in other people's newsfeeds. The more your brand post s match topics and content type t o
users' interests, the greater the weight of your content and t he higher the likelihood your content
will appear in fans' newsfeeds.
De: Time decay fact or for this edge: The last of Facebook’s EdgeRank attributes is a simple
one: The more recent the post, t he more likely you are to see it. You do not often launch
Facebook and see something posted a week ago. Facebook knows t hat we are all real-time

junkies if a band is hot, a TV show is great, a meme is growing or our f riends found a great party,
we must know now!
Facebook's EdgeRank is not rocket science the more affinity an individual has for your brand, the
more interest he or she has for the types of content your brand post s, the more others find your
content engaging and the more timely your posts, the greater your brand's chances of being
included in a fan's newsfeed. While this all seems obvious, marketers must take note of several
vital things about EdgeRank:
Facebook does not exist to give your brand the opportunity for free earned media. Its
purpose is to give users a great social experience, which may include the brands t hat
authentically earn their attention.
The same rules apply to people as to brands. If your brand posts interesting content that
gets people engaging, the content is seen in more users' newsfeeds. If not
A brand that fails to engage fans can disappear from fans' newsfeeds. If this happens
Your brand can become invisible on Facebook. Consumers rarely visit brand pages; in fact ,
Facebook reports that fans are 40 to 150 times more likely to interact wit h brands on their
newsfeeds than going to a brand page. If you disappear from consumers' newsfeeds, you
disappear from Facebook.
EdgeRank is Facebook's formula for keeping users' newsfeeds as interesting and relevant
as possible, but this is far from the entire equation for brand success on Facebook. Two key
components for Facebook marketing success are missing, and far too many marketers
overlook these.
Missing Facebook Attribute #1: Fans that matter
What is missing? Well the first thing should be evident: Fans, but not just any fans, the right fans.
Not all fans are creat ed equal, although you would not know this given some of the relatively
desperate methods brands use to accumulate "fans." EdgeRank tells us that brands must collect
signals of affinity as quickly as possible, so the primary goal in your brand's fan accumulation
strategy should not be raw numbers of fans but collecting the right fans ones that arrive with
some level of affinity or immediate potential for affinity.
An interested customer is likely to interact with your brand, which tells Facebook he or she wants
to see more from your brand. On the other hand, a disinterested fan fails to interact, resulting in

the expulsion of the your brand from the fan's newsfeed.
I have never understood why brands turn to general-interest sweepstakes and contests to earn
"likes," for this seems to offer no path to Facebook success. The theory is that a fan acquired
through these means will move up the value ladder he or she may start as a disinterested
prospect, but soon this person will become so enamored with the brand's wonderful content that
the individual will rise to prospect, then customer and finally loyal advocate. This is the traditional
advertising funnel view of t he brand journey, and applying it to Facebook is, in the words of
the immortal Joe Biden, "Malarkey!"
Facebook's EdgeRank prevents disinterested prospects from gaining value. A new fan who was
seduced by a contest or sweepstakes will see a few posts from your brand, and if they ignore
these posts (and they will), your brand is gone. When this happens, your marketing investment will
have incremented a number at the top of your fan page but delivered nothing else, least of all a
prospect with an opportunity to see your brand's content within his or her newsfeed.
Brands are treating Facebook "likes" as if they are email subscription requests, but EdgeRank tells
us this is not an effective strategy. Instead, you must find fans with affinity and keep that affinity
to remain part of fans' Facebook experience. The path to greater brand awareness is not to
collect disinterested fans and hope your content reaches them, because it won't; inst ead, brands
achieve awareness on Facebook by collect ing fans with existing or immediately available affinity
and giving them content and interactions they will share with others (either purposely or
inadvertently through Facebook's platform.)
In my Facebook success equation, I call t his "Fans to the power of Affinity." Affinity does not grow
your brand's Facebook success mathematically but exponent ially. A fan with zero affinity stands
almost no chance of seeing your content; a fan with modest aff inity may or may not interact
sufficiently to keep your brand present within his or her newsfeed; but a fan with strong existing
aff inity or the opportunit y to gain it immediately can be a regular receiver, engager and sharer of
your content .
To affinity and beyond! (Sorry, the Disney fan in me came out there.)
Missing Facebook Attribute #2: Brand Vector
The second component that we must add to Facebook's EdgeRank equat ion is brand vector. This
means that your content and interactions must move people closer to the brand.

Engagement for engagement 's sake may get your brand on fans' newsfeeds, but your brand must
drive marketing value and not merely be seen. It is not enough to capture attent ion; you have t o
capture hearts and minds. If you collect "eyeballs" but fail to change perception or behavior around
your brand, you've failed, no matter what your fan count or "talking about this" number says.
Brands have long f allen into the trap of settling for mere likeability and engagement. One of my
favorite pre-social-era examples of this is Taco Bell's Chihuahua. For years, Taco Bell ran ads with
the popular pup telling people “Yo Quiero Taco Bell.” The dog abruptly disappeared from airwaves
because the Chihuahua was more effective at selling T-shirts and plush animals than he was at
selling tacos. In the language of the social era, Taco Bell settled for engagement but lacked brand
vect or.
For a more recent example, look at Progressive's recent social media PR event. Angry customers
flooded into Progressive's fan page to protest the company's handling of a claim. Progressive has
the most popular fan page in insurance, at least as measured in simple metrics 4.7 million likes and
30,000 people talking about the brand but despite those amazing numbers, Progressive saw little
to no advocacy in the midst of the company's negat ive PR event . It is easy to see why: Flo posts
lots of fun and games, but where is the discussion about risk, protecting f amilies, the value of
insurance or why Progressive is worth consideration? There is little brand vector evident in the
engagement Flo creates, so Flo is just another popular character. That's great if Progressive
produces sitcoms but is of dubious value if Progressive wishes to change awareness,
consideration and intent around its financial products.
Here, in its complete form, is the entire Facebook success equation for marketers. Not just
Facebook's EdgeRank formula, but also the inclusion of the right fans and the right messaging.
What do you think? Have I missed anything? Your comments are welcome and appreciated.
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Aut hored by:
Augie Ray
My background includes

more than 15 years of
experience in digital and
social media, including time
covering social media for
Forrester, managing a large
and diverse team in a digital
agency, and leading social
business at two Fortune 500 financial services firms. I am focused on how social media is
changing not just the way we market but the way we create, maintain and enhance
the
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