Why People Can't See Your Page In Their Newsfeed

So you've created a Page on Facebook for your business, but it isn't really generating any activity. You might have even had a friend or two ask you how come they never see any posts. You scratch your head and ask yourself the same question.

The most likely culprit: you might not be allowing comments, likes, or your Fans to do anything on your Page. You might be treating it as a bullhorn instead of a conversation. While this isn't the only reason, the information I have to share with you applies to everyone.

EdgeRank Explained

If you've operated a website for very long, you've likely heard of PageRank — part of Google's search result ranking algorithm. Facebook also has an algorithm for deciding what appears in your newsfeed; they call it EdgeRank. Every interaction is considering an "Edge".

EdgeRank is very simple (on the surface, at least). There are three factors that go into determining each of your posts' and status updates' EdgeRank: Affinity, Weight, and Decay. These are multiplied together to determine what order it will appear in the "Top News" tab, and if it will appear in the "Recent News" tab. (Note: this also explains why certain friends start or stop showing up in your newsfeed.)

Affinity is a measure of the level of interaction you have with that profile. If a user visits your page or comments on your posts, you will have a higher affinity score. The same thing happens if you visit another person's profile or send them messages often. This is why as you stop interacting with certain people, they seem to disappear. They are still there, but their affinity score is too low to be much of a factor in helping them to achieve enough EdgeRank for your newsfeed.

Weight is a measure of the type of interactions that your posts and status updates are generating. We should consider ourselves lucky that Facebook even let us in on the basic factors of EdgeRank, but they won't go into much detail on how the Weight factor is determined. My thinking is that creation > tagging > commenting > liking. That is creating a post (such as on a person's or Page's Wall) likely increases the Weight of that particular post. If you are tagged in a post (such as a photo, video, or status update), or if you tag someone else, the Weight factor of the post will increase. Comments also contribute weight, and likes contribute a little. I base my theory on how the Weight factor works on the level of effort it takes for each interaction.

Decay is probably the most obvious to most people. Decay is a factor that effectively lowers the EdgeRank of an Edge as time passes. This is why your "Top News" tab appears to not be in any chronological order. If the Affinity and Weight factors of a post are significant enough, it may take a lot of time (relatively) for the Decay factor to drop it down in EdgeRank. This is why you can see posts at the top of your newsfeed that are two days old, and one that is a half-hour old below it, then 2 hours, then 30 seconds, etc.

So, What Can I Do to Fix This?

If your Page doesn't seem to be showing up anywhere, then the first step you can take to fix this issue is make sure that you are treating your Page as you should always treat social media: conversation. If your comments are turned off so that you can control your so-called conversation, you will fail. If you are not creating quality content, you will fail.

Encourage your friends to interact with your Page a little bit, even if it is only liking a post here or there. What will happen is their friends that they hold a high affinity score with will see that they liked your post in your newsfeed. That can lead to more likes, more comments, and more people subscribing to your updates.