EdgeRank: Why Interest Lists, ‘Show in News Feed’ and Fan Interaction Don’t Solve the Bigger Issue [UPDATED]
UPDATE: Hugh Briss of Social Identities has started a petition at change.org asking Facebook to make EdgeRank an option. You can read it (and sign it, if you’re so inclined) here.
Posts have been flying from Facebook Page owners recently encouraging fans to create interest lists, click ‘show in news feed’, and interact frequently with posts to ensure that the Page’s posts show in user’s news feeds. While these are options, they don’t solve the bigger issue. That bigger issue is EdgeRank and the fact that an algorithm decides what content is important to you – not you.
One of the most important determining factors in posts being seen in the news feed is the interaction between users and Page content. The more a user interacts with a Page’s content, the more likely that Page’s posts will show in that user’s news feed. Supposedly. Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank to determine which posts are placed in users’ news feeds (see a post and infographic by Aaron Lee explaining EdgeRank here). So, the way it’s explained by Facebook, the more a user interacts with a Page’s content the more likely that content will show in the user’s news feed. Sounds logical, right? The only problem is that it doesn’t seem to really work that way.
For instance, in my own personal news feed, there are Pages that I interact with on a regular basis, yet their posts don’t always show up in my news feed. Then there are Pages that I never interact with, yet see every post. Hmmm. Some would say that the Pages I see regularly (regardless of my lack of interaction) have a higher EdgeRank so their posts are seen by a larger percentage of their fans. OK, but how do you (and by you, I mean Facebook) explain my not seeing the Pages that I do interact with? Ironically, this group also includes a couple of Pages for which I’m an admin…so I surely should be seeing their posts, right? You’d think so, but…No.
I suggested looooong ago that, while I appreciate Facebook’s desire to make my experience on the site more relevant and engaging (sort of), I don’t appreciate the fact that Facebook wants to determine which of those Pages will give me that experience. Users are smart enough to unlike a Page that is posting too often, posting substandard content, etc. We managed to find the Pages in order to like them in the first place, I’m sure we can figure out how to go back to the Page and unlike it if we, indeed, don’t want to see their posts.
SEE ALSO: Dear Mark Zuckerberg, Can We Talk?
Many Page owners have recently been encouraging their fans to make interest lists for the Pages whose content they don’t want to miss, engage more with the Page’s posts, or even go to the Page and click “show in news feed”. Unfortunately, none of these ‘fixes’ solve the bigger issue.
Why these ‘fixes’ don’t always work:
1) Interest Lists I have interest lists for several topics. Even so, the interest lists don’t even show in my news feed consistently. If even my interest lists aren’t pushed to my news feed regularly, how does that help? Answer? It doesn’t!
2) ‘Show in News Feed’ This request is definitely not the fix because ‘the show in news feed’ is the default setting when a user initially likes a Page. Obviously that’s not working or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
3) Encouraging Interaction This is always a great idea, but as I mentioned above, there are many Pages that I interact with regularly, yet they still aren’t always pushed to my news feed. Also, if that Page’s EdgeRank is low, I may never see the posts or have the opportunity to interact with the Page’s content. If I have 1,000 fans and my posts only go out to 100 of them, how do the other 900 fans know if I’m posting relevant, interesting, or engaging content?
The overriding issue is Facebook deciding that my news feed is too cluttered and attempting to fix that for me (and you) by developing an algorithm and basically deciding for me (and you) what I’ll find interesting. We saw the same phenomenon when Top Stories was rolled out. An algorithm isn’t capable of deciding for a human what is relevant content. Period.
Facebook says they want to encourage frictionless sharing…yet they are stifling that for brand Pages – especially small business Pages. I mean, do you really think Coca Cola or Starbucks have to concern themselves with EdgeRank? No. Some would say that’s because those Pages get a great deal of fan interaction. I believe one could also say that those companies’ posts have a better chance of getting fan interaction because their posts are seen in their fans’ news feeds. I wonder how much they spend per quarter on Facebook advertising. Don’t even get me started on advertising and Facebook customer service – but do check back in a day or two as that will be the subject of my next post.
So what is the answer? One answer would be for Facebook to listen to their users’ complaints and to the complaints of business owners who are trying desperately to encourage engagement on their Pages. Given the complete lack of customer service from Facebook that may never happen, unfortunately. Unless…
A recent Facebook post by Hugh Briss of Social Identities discussing the effect of EdgeRank on not only which Page posts are pushed to your news feed, but also posts from your friends. Hugh invited his fans to like, comment, and share his post as a sort of impromptu petition (and awareness campaign) to let Facebook know that when we like a Page, that is an indication that we want to see that Page’s posts and we don’t need Facebook to assume a Big Brother role and decide for us or, in effect, censor our news feeds – from Pages or friends. The idea of EdgeRank as censorship is also addressed in this post by MaAnna Stephenson of BlogAid. See Hugh’s humorous, yet sadly accurate image below. You can also see his complete post on the subject on the Social Identities Facebook Page.
What do you think is the answer? Would a petition to Facebook work? Let me know your experiences and your ideas for a fix in the comments below!
Carole Billingsley (@YouSeekSocial) is a social media consultant and trainer. Combining her social media expertise with her decades of experience in entertainment and education, Carole founded Seek Social Media in 2011. She is known for her ability to make technical and social media topics easy to understand for even the least tech-savvy business owner. Specialty areas: social media, customer experience, digital presence, crisis management.
10 Comments
Hugh Briss
October 19, 2012Great post and I’m not just saying that because you included me in it. 🙂
Carole
October 19, 2012LOL! Thanks, Hugh!
nikola
January 4, 2013Allright guys, Facebook is only trying to earn ‘some’ money promoting page admins posts. Now it is not only Mark Zuckerberg involved, because of stocks on market, facebook needs to earn more money for investors…
Carole
January 7, 2013True, Nikola and thanks for your comment. Facebook is in business to make money. I think the problem stems from the EdgeRank adjustment coming around the time of the promoted posts option – and after many page admins had spent quite a bit of money on Facebook advertising to grow their audiences only to find out they had to pay again for that audience to see their posts. I’m not opposed to spending money to market…it’s never been free before, why would it be free now? I am, however, opposed to paying twice to reach the same people.
Brian
November 1, 2013Hi, sort of related to this older post: I use Facebook interest lists and I had them set up in a way that was great for me. With 500+ friends and over 100+ “liked” pages, my news feed was far too cluttered for me.
6 months or so ago, I went through all of my friends one by one, and sorted them by acquaintance, close friend. That helped my news feed.
Then, I created Interest lists – recipes / sports / music / restaurants. Then I hid all liked pages from my news feed. Instead, I sorted them all into interest lists. This was great!
Finally, my news feed wasn’t cluttered. I could see my close friends. Then, if I wanted to see what the bands I like were up to, I could click on my music Interest List, and scroll through them all at once!
In the past 10 days, Facebook changed something. Now, if I have a liked page hidden from my news feed, it doesn’t show up in my interest list. Since I have all liked pages hidden, now all of my interest lists are blank and say “no new posts to show.” Except for my music list. One band out of 90 shows up inexplicably, because it too is hidden from my news feed.
I have tried to figure out why Facebook made this change or what incentive it would have for them to make this change. I can’t find any information on it, and everyone knows their customer service is terrible. There are a lot of posts in their help forums asking what is going on, but no official response that I could find.
Any idea what is going on? It really ruined my feed. I may just give up on FB. I can get the info elsewhere and I am tired of the security changes, page changes etc. All seems like trickery.
I tried searching other tech blogs (Gizmodo, etc) and can’t find anything about the list change.
Carole
November 1, 2013Oh man! That stinks, Brian! I can’t imagine why they’d have made that change either – and I honestly have no idea for a workaround.
I was searching for something in their help forums the other day and was shocked at the number of posts there were on topics, some going back 6 months, with absolutely no responses from FB or even acknowledgement of the posts. They really could stand to hire some people to man those forums. It’s really sort of ridiculous.
Good luck with your lists. Sorry I don’t have an answer for you. If you find one, I’d love it if you came back here and let me know what you found out. I’m sure a lot of people could benefit from the info. 🙂
Carole
Brian
November 11, 2013Thanks Carole. I have waited about 10 days for more information or a reply from FB to no luck. Over the weekend I unliked pages and went from probably close to 250 liked pages down to 35. Probaby not the effect FB was hoping to have, but most of the pages I liked I can find the information they were posting elsewhere. When it was easy to like a page and filter it to a list, I didn’t mind having a ton of liked pages because I was in control of filtering the information and could read it all in a way that was beneficial to me. Now that I have lost that control, it all started to feel like my newsfeed was one long cluttered commercial.
It is too bad that a.) Facebook’s customer service is so terrible, and that b.) they can’t just leave well enough alone. To me, all of the changes in the way the site works and the security changes are meant to breed confusion and leave customers accidentally leaving data open to the public, so they may exploit that data for revenue.
I have talked to a few friends in the past few weeks and many seem to agree that they spend less time on FB and think the site is more hassle than its worth and has sort of run out of usefulness.
There seems to be a move of many of these newer technology companies to limited customer service. Netflix is the same way, they give you no way to contact them other than a phone number.
Too bad there isn’t more competition for Facebook that gives users more control, because I think it would be successful.
Carole
November 14, 2013Hi Brian,
I couldn’t agree more about the ridiculously poor customer service from Facebook and other tech companies. I don’t understand it. To me, customer service is key! Then again, I suppose if you have a billion daily users in spite of your poor customer service, there’s really no incentive to improve.
Also agree that it would be nice if there was a viable competitor for Facebook. Google+ does seem to give users more control, but they haven’t had the buy-in from users that Facebook has. Then again, there are some pretty janky things on G+ also.
I often wish that Facebook would leave well enough alone, too, because most of their new features end up being a pain. You make a valid point about breeding confusion among users so as to leave data open for data farming. Very interesting point, in fact.
Thanks for the follow up!
Carole
nitourios
August 21, 2014my Facebook pages feeds is not show in my news feed.
what is this problem? anyone can fix it? there is another option on my Facebook home page (pages feeds) when i click on it Facebook show my pages feeds i want to marge pages feed option in news feed please help me.
Carole
October 1, 2014Hi Nitourios,
The Pages feed is a separate feed so it can’t be combined with the News Feed. Sorry!
Carole