Facebook News Feed Optimization 101

This afternoon at Blog World we were able to participate in a fantastically informative session on Facebook news feed optimization. The session focused on how to ensure your brand’s Facebook posts stand out from the noise in a consumer’s personal news feed.

The session was moderated by Bryan Person and featured three panelists: Helen Todd of Sociality Squared, Chad Wittman of EdgeRank Checker and Dennis Yu of Blitz Local. Bryan kicked off the session by setting the scene with these two stats: the average Facebook user has 130 friends and “likes” 90 pages.

Brands, meet your competition for news feed space.

News feed placement is based on an EdgeRank algorithm that factors in three things: affinity, weight and time decay. In order to “beat” EdgeRank at it’s own game, the panelists offered several tips:

• Know your audience. Be relevant. This will drive engagement and thus, news feed placement.
• Use Facebook Questions. This tool, which looks like a survey, has more weight in the news feed than simply asking a question in a traditional Facebook Wall post.
• Target wall posts by geography/location. This will increase your relevance.
• If you are posting via a third party such as Hootsuite, know that posts from those types of programs have seen a decrease in news feed placement. Post organically through Facebook.
• As a brand, ask yourself: Are you nurturing your Facebooks fans? Are you treating them like your actual friends? You should be. Be as engaging with your Facebook fans as they are with each other.
• Focus on quality. Do not re-post the same content multiple times in one day on your page.

In closing, panelist Dennis Yu advised, “Facebook brand pages with huge followings often got that way through contests or giveaways.  That is not building an engaging fan base. Your focus should be on engagement, relevance and quality content.”