A Facebook engineer who helped build the News Feed told InsideFacebook.com that only 1 out of 500 stories will make it through the News Feed. That was six years ago. The social network has yet to update the statistic, but it’s highly likely that its algorithm, EdgeRank, filters more stories now than in 2007.

PostRocket, a Facebook Marketing blog, has released a new infographic that confirms two things: the news feed is competitive, more than ever, and photo posts dominate it.

The number of photo posts from November 2011 to January 2013 grew from 20 percent to 50 percent – a 150 percent increase that proves how user engagement on Facebook is leaning towards status updates with images. Facebook marketers have to take advantage of this statistic.

Photo post optimization starts with the proper dimensions so ensure that it meets Facebook’s recommended standards for photo page posts or sponsored stories, cover photos, profile pictures, and link preview images.

Without further ado, here’s the infographic by PostRocket.

Optimizing Photo Posts For Efficient Facebook Marketing [Infographic] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

According to Facebook’s latest earnings report, the social network has seen several improvements from the first quarter of last year to this year: 665 million daily active users, a 26 percent increase; 1.11 billion monthly active users, a 23 percent increase; and 751 million mobile monthly active users, a 54 percent increase.

The numbers led to higher ad revenues for the company year-over-year: $1.46 billion total revenue, a 38 percent increase; advertising accounted for 85 percent of total revenue, a 43 percent increase; and mobile advertising revenue accounted for about 30 percent of advertising revenue.

The point is that these figures mean businesses have to capitalize on Facebook marketing, now more than ever.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of and CEO at Facebook, said the company has seen strong growth and user engagement across its community, as well as new product launches.

The company launched Facebook Home for Android devices, an attempt to socialize the whole mobile experience by putting people first than apps.

During the first quarter of 2013, Instagram, the photo-sharing service acquired by Facebook, crossed the mark for 100 million monthly active users.

Lookalike Audiences, Managed Custom Audiences, Partner Categories – these are just some of the marketing tools that Facebook launched this year to help advertisers target their audience.

With these business highlights and advertising opportunities, Facebook marketing is now at its peak. Social media marketers have to take advantage of the platform’s tools if they want more exposure and build networks.

But it’s not all that easy. Although Facebook has openly confirmed that it wants to generate more revenue from ads, the company is still searching for the right balance between ads and user content. With this goal in mind, the social network built filters on its members’ Pages and News Feeds.

Then Facebook created EdgeRank, the algorithm that decides what stories show up in each user’s News Feed.

Featured image from edgerank.net

Now that there’s a formula, is there a thing called EdgeRank Score? Can it be measured? Well, no, for both questions.

While it’s impossible to check an official Facebook EdgeRank score, the effects of the algorithm may be measured by third-party Facebook analytics tools such as EdgeRank Checker and PageLever. These EdgeRank score checkers usually measure the number through varying factors: the number of people reached, user engagement, and more.

Unfortunately there’s no general EdgeRank score, because each Facebook user has a unique affinity score with each page. Facebook remains mum and secretive about it, while constantly changing it. This means the values of a comment, a like, a photo, and other variables are not constants – the textbook definition of variable. Also, fan pages do not appear in News Feed.

Simply put, no third-party tool can measure EdgeRank Score. Facebook keeps too much private data that if a fan likes a status update, no one can ever know how tightly connected he or she is to other fans. The closer the fan, the more impact his or her Like has on the affinity score of the status update for other fans.

So it’s a blind alley for Facebook marketers and the world will end in 5 minutes? Again, no and no.

This is Facebook EdgeRank as we see it now: a completely closed-door, proprietary algorithm that filters content in the News Feed.

Should Facebook allow the public to see their real EdgeRank scores or not? Drop us your comments below.

How To Measure Your Facebook EdgeRank Score Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel joked that Facebook owed him billions of dollars.

However, apart from making people laugh at the joke, the Hollywood superstar actually offers a valuable lesson to Facebook Page owners about how they can get more likes.

In the interview, Vin Diesel shares how he was once the owner of the world’s most popular Facebook Page.

When asked what he attributes his massive following on Facebook to, Diesel asked Entertainment Weekly if they have ever seen the film “Social Network”. “Do you remember what they said the reason was to make Facebook?” he asked.

The publication quipped “To meet girls?”.

Diesel joked that that is what Facebook was for. He said that when “The Social Network” movie was made, “nobody had a million fans.”

What he observed is that Facebook was promoting it like “We came up with a new way for people to check marital status.”

He said that this is “not what Facebook was. That’s not why Facebook would be successful.”

Nobody cares about people’s marital status. “That’s as dated as MySpace!” he said.

According to him, Facebook did not realize that something big was about to happen.

“That was — for the first time in history, and it’s kind of a fluke they didn’t see this coming — when I jumped on that page in April 2009, I started talking to people. In the realest ways,” he continued.

“Imagine if you could’ve been a Facebook friend to Marlon Brando, or whoever your role models are. Imagine, if you were able to Facebook Elvis, and talk to him, and hear from him without the Hollywood of it all,” he added.

He recalls that when he started his Facebook Page, the only person who had over a million fans was Barack Obama because he just got elected.

“So, when I started talking to the fans, I became the No. 1 page in the world. Over Coca-Cola, over huge companies. And it was only because I said: ‘Hi, guys, I love you.’” he said.

Vin Diesel also revealed that Facebook once asked him to go to their headquarters to talk about what he was doing to get such a massive following on the social network.

This is where he shares his secret: be real and interact with people.

He said:

“What was unique was: I never let anyone do a post, I never let anyone post for me in the last four years. My audience knows me so well on the page that if my producing partner’s in the room when I post, they’ll know somebody was around me. That’s kind of cool, that’s how sophisticated they are. Facebook really owes me billions of dollars. But whatever.”

Via Entertainment Weekly

Learn From Vin Diesel To Get More Facebook Page Likes Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

The Facebook development team includes a special group of about twelve engineers who monitor the algorithm of News Feed. This software engineers tweak EdgeRank – the algorithm – almost every week, conducting tests for beta features and adjustments to the program.

But what is Facebook EdgeRank?

EdgeRank is the algorithmic rule used by Facebook, the world’s largest social network, to fix the variables on each user’s News Feed. The three variables that help determine where and what posts appear, and that make up EdgeRank, are affinity, weight, and time decay.

AFFINITY

For the Facebook News Feed team, “affinity” means the relationship between the author of the story and the viewing audience. This affinity is directly proportional to EdgeRank; the closer the relationship, the higher the score. For example, News Feed will likely choose cheesy stories from your sibling against insightful status updates from a relatively unknown acquaintance, who made it into your Friends list a few weeks ago.

Affinity is one-way. Heavy interactions with another Facebook user will increase the chance of his or her story stories to appear on your News Feed, but this does not necessarily work in the other direction. Your stories may not show up on his or her News Feed.

WEIGHT

The type of post you put out on Facebook News Feed follows a ranking system according to its weight (in proper order): photos and videos, links, and plain text updates. The higher the weight, the higher the score.

Facebook posts with new features encourage widespread usage, so the social network assigns higher weights to these updates. You can reach more fans through these new features.

User engagement also affect a post’s weight. For example, an otherwise simple, plain text update with many likes and comments from other users may carry more fused weight than a photo post without user engagement, despite the initial weight of both posts.

Photo Post > Text Post but Photo Post (no engagement) < Text Post (with engagement)

TIME DECAY

Like most earthly things and affairs, a Facebook post loses value as it ages. EdgeRank works this way to ensure that your News Feed remains fresh with the latest news. But you cannot blame it for your own fault.

The speed of a post’s depreciation depends on the Facebook user. For example, if you access your Facebook account only once a week, less-than-a-week-old stories may still appear on your News Feed.

Facebook’s war room, where its engineering team is turning on new messaging features. Featured image by Robert Scoble / Flickr (CC)

WHY EDGERANK MATTERS

As a social media marketer that specializes in Facebook marketing, you have to know and understand that numbers from demographics are effective tools for projections on the social network.

Here are some Facebook statistics, from comScore’s Power of Like paper in 2011, that prove why EdgeRank is important in your campaign.

1. 96 percent of fans do not return to a brand’s Facebook Page after initial engagement.

2. A Facebook post is 40 to 150 times more likely to reach fans in the News Feed than your page.

3. Facebook users spent 27 percent of their time looking at the News Feed. This is equivalent to 10.5 billion minutes per day, excluding users who access the site through mobile devices.

4. Facebook users in the United States spend more time on Facebook News Feed than six major news sites – ABC, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, CNN, New York Times, and Huffington Post – combined.

5. On average, only 16 percent of your fans will see your posts.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PAGE’S EDGERANK

Post Rocket, a website that specialized on Facebook marketing, recently published a list of 18 tips for Facebook Page posts. Some of these tips and statistics apply to News Feed.

1. Keep it short. Posts between 100 and 250 characters receive 60 percent more likes, comments, and shares than posts with more than 250 characters.

2. Be visual. Photo albums, photos, and videos receive 180 percent, 120 percent, and 100 percent more user engagement, respectively.

3. Ask for what you want. Simple opinion-driven questions or updates will draw 90 percent more user engagement than the average post.

4. Post daily. Post updates often to reach out to your fans. Remember that 96 percent of fans no longer return to a Facebook Page after initial engagement.

5. Be relevant, but not pushy. Post about topics in your niche, not directly about your brand. Save your sales pitch on the actual article or blog post, not on Facebook News Feed.

6. Be timely. Monitor the best time span for your target audience – times when they are more likely to be online and share your posts – and stick to it.

What is Facebook EdgeRank? Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

One of the sure ways to boost engagement and likes on Facebook Pages is to create a contest and use a customized Facebook contest app.

However, not every business owner who has used this strategy can say that they did it right.

One of the biggest problem business owners have to tackle when using a Facebook contest app is the complexity of Facebook’s rules. Another is the process of creation of an app that fulfills the uses business owners want it to have.

For business owners who are not exactly sure about how to create the perfect Facebook contest app, here is an infographic to use to get a clear picture.

Made by ShortStack, a company that deals with Facebook app creation, Facebook contest development and management, and more, the infographic also features tips on how to promote your Facebook contest app once it is already created.

Learn more from the infographic embedded below.

The Perfect Facebook Contest App [Infographic] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Facebook marketers are not born with the knowledge they have now. They are made. Thus they also make mistakes along the way, from fairly acceptable blunders to sheer unforgivable errors.

Facebook marketing is volatile. The slightest mistake may make or break a business strategy or online marketing campaign. And some pratfalls may attract negative feedback from followers and fans on the platform.

Try to avoid the most common, inexcusable blunders in Facebook marketing from happening to your Facebook Pages.

1. Real Facebook fans are not for sale.

After creating a Facebook Page, the first roadblock you will face is the number of fans you currently have: zero. This is far from the thousands of people you envisioned would flock to the Page and click the revered “Like” button.

Many third-party providers use multiple platforms to advertise their services, with the promise to increase the number of fans from nil to tens of thousands for a very cheap price. You should know better and not take the sales pitch seriously.

“Likes” from these providers are worthless. The fans added to your Facebook Page lack engagement. This will only tell Facebook that your posts are not socially engaging.

Facebook filters posts by their level of engagement: the number of likes, shares, comments, etc. If you have lots of dummy fans who do not like or share these posts, Facebook will think that your posts are dull or irrelevant. And the social network has the discretion to prevent these posts from showing up on the walls of your other fans: real people, the ones who actually take time to read and like the posts on your page.

How to correct this mistake? Have patience. This works for people who have no budget. Facebook Page visibility increases with the simple addition of a “Like” button to your official website or blog. But if your business requires the best solution without financial constraints, use Facebook Ads and Sponsored Stories to narrow down your target audience. You should go after relevant Facebook users who will likely be your customers in the near future.

2. Irrelevant content irks Facebook users.

Facebook users liked or subscribed to your page to receive relevant content related to your niche. Do not test their patience by posting otherwise.

Irrelevant content may engage some users for a time, but it will be short-lived and comes at a cost. When out of context, these posts, mostly photos, will generate the largest number of negative feedback from your avid fans.

A professional Facebook Page is a portal to your business. Stick to it. With more than one billion Facebook users online, a wrong post from your page may go viral in a few minutes. Do not even test how it will end. You already know that.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s all right to test your fans’ sense of humor every now and then. You may post a funny photo or start a trending topic once a week, as long as it still pertains to your business.

Featured image by Laura Dinneen / Flickr (CC)

How to correct this mistake? Relevant posts. You may add quips, but not too often. The slightest mistake may generate the harshest feedback, and sometimes even more than your most engaging posts help.

3. Not all your fans like the same content.

Your fans time online is valuable. Each time your fans click a link from their news feed to your post, they expect you to provide something of value to them.

If a particular post gives valuable information to a select few, focus on those fans. These targeted fans will feel uninformed and left out if they do not get the latest updates from you. Do not break their trust.

How to correct this mistake? Use the Facebook targeting feature for each post, at least when it makes sense that only a few fans have to know about it. If not, you will likely let down or displease your fans.

4. Redundancy is useful, but not for URLs in a post on Facebook.

URLs, especially the long ones, within Facebook posts reek a lack of order and tidiness. It is exaggeratedly unnecessary to post the URL of a website if Facebook has provided you with a “clickable” snippet window linked to your site.

How to correct this mistake? Delete the URL in the post after the link preview shows up. But if you are reposting the link as a photo, the link inside the post is completely necessary. Again, do not do this in textual posts.

5. Facebook user engagement means direct communication.

Facebook marketing means direct or indirect user engagement. So when it comes to “Likes” and comments on your Facebook Page, please be kind enough to recognize your fans’ time and effort on your posts.

User feedback is tantamount to gold in Facebook marketing. And as a marketer on the platform, you have to acknowledge it and give some feedback in return.

How to correct this mistake? You created a page on the world’s largest “social networking” site so live up to it. Answer all fan questions or add relevant information when necessary.

Most customers have also turned to official Facebook Pages to ask for support with products and services. Do not alienate these human beings. Help them if you do not want your figures to run off a cliff.

5 Common Blunders in Facebook Marketing Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

What type of content should you post on Facebook and when should you post it?

The answer to that is that it depends.

However, what is certain is that if you are a tech savvy business looking to take advantage of the tools social media offers, you should post on Facebook.

According to Pagemodo in the infographic, “When you post great content, your followers will engage with it by liking, sharing and commenting.”

“Aside from endearing people to your brand, engaging content drives social discovery through amplification. And all those extra pair of eyes can quickly translate into more likes, more leads, and more customers for your business.”

Photos are the most engaging posts on Facebook, the infographic reveals. That is followed by status updates, videos, and links.

Meanwhile, Wednesday is the worst day to post on Facebook while weekends are the best.

Learn more insight, including how people react differently to positive and negative content, from the infographic made by Pagemodo and embedded below.

What You Should Post On Facebook [Infographic] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Did you know that there are 13 million Facebook users who have never touched their Facebook privacy settings?

That may seem like a small number when taken in light of the 751 million monthly active users the company recently reported but 13 million is still a number which should not be dismissed.

READ: Facebook Reaches 751 Million Monthly Active Users, Earns More From Mobile Ads

According to this infographic, 28 percent of all Facebook users share all, or almost all, of their wall posts with an audience wider than just their friends.

Furthermore, 11 percent of Facebook users said that someone else has tried to use their login without their permission.

With the imminent global launch of Graph Search, Facebook privacy becomes more of a concern especially for those who want to keep most of their content private. Graph Search searches your photos, status updates, and other information in order to better connect a Facebook user with friends, potential friends, and the world.

READ: So What Is Facebook Graph Search?

Learn three pro tips on Facebook privacy settings from the infographic made by Marketo.

Featured image from G4ll4is on Flickr (CC)

The Facebook Privacy Infographic Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Facebook has recently changed its News Feed to put more emphasis on photos and videos. Don’t let your posts get lost in your followers’ News Feeds. Instead, ramp up your use of visual content and watch engagement soar.

You don’t need to hire a professional photographer or graphic designer to have enough visual media to share with your social media audiences. Check out the ideas below for visual content to share on Facebook.

1. Give a glimpse into your work environment

Do you have an impressive candy stash in the break room? Do you have a beautiful view from your office? Does your IT guide have an impressive desk set up that would make geeks jealous? Breathe life into your company by showing the quirks and perks of why your working environment is unique. This can also be a great recruiting tool!

2. Bring your audience with you to events

Posting updates from industry conferences and trade shows lets your audience come along for the ride and get a sneak peek into otherwise exclusive events. For example, when Edmunds.com went to a recent car show, they were able to excited car enthusiasts with their behind-the-scenes photos.

3. Snap photos of food/parties in the office

Food has universal appeal. Strategically post food photos at the times of day people are hungry (like just before lunch and early evening) to really peak interest.

4. Add images to important announcements

If there is something you absolutely want your followers to see, include an eye-catching image. Adding a photo to what would normally be a text-only post can help it stand out in the News Feed and ensure full visibility.

5. Turn quotes into graphics

Make your audience think or feel inspired by turning some relevant quotes into pretty graphics. Use bright colors and bold fonts to really make these stand out. Kerrygold Cheese & Butter does this frequently on their Facebook page.

6. Use graphics or screenshots from blog posts

Add a link to the full post in the photo caption. This can help drive traffic to your blog, where your followers can further connect with your brand.

7. Make step-by-step visual tutorials

Create a photo album where each photo is a different step in a tutorial. For shorter tutorials, you can even fit the entire step-by-step process into one photo.

8. Feature your team members

Who are the people behind the brand? Consider highlighting employees of the month, employees who have hit career milestones, or someone who deserves kudos for helping with a huge project. If you have a smaller company, you can create a photo album of all of your employees and then link to all of their on-site bio pages.

9. Highlight off-site employee activities

Share pictures of employees getting together for after work events, either just for fun or for industry-related gatherings. Whether it’s happy hour, volunteer work, or a road trip for a conference, show how that there is more to your company than life inside the office.

10. Reminisce about the good old days

If your business has been around for a long time, dig up photos from the beginning. Retro photos are all the rage (think of all the Instagram filters that make photos look old), and this also shows you are a trusted company that’s stood the test of time. Home Depot celebrated their 30-year anniversary with photos from back in the early days.

11. Tease out new offerings

If you have something special in the works, use a photo to tease your audience about this upcoming announcement. This can help build anticipation and keep your followers checking back for the big reveal.

The best part: many of the above ideas can be photos or videos. What are some ways you use photos to engage your social media followers? Let me know in the comments below.

About the Author:

Kerry Jones is a freelance writer and online marketing consultant living in Tampa, FL. She covers a wide range of trending tech and marketing topics, including emerging social networks and hot new gadgets, such as the latest Windows tablet.

Be Seen: 12 Ideas for Visual Facebook Content Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Facebook is a simple and free to use social media site considered as the best to keep in touch with the people you know. Moreover, you can also prefer this secured platform to make new connections.

You can say that Facebook is basically a site that offers you everything; you could think of including safe interactive features, gaming facilities, and much more. This is the basic reason, which is why it has gained a lot of popularity in last few years.

Currently, Facebook has 500 million active users from all over the world, and the most surprising fact is that 50 percent of the total active users login their account on daily basis. In fact if someone will say these days that he does not have a Facebook account, no one will believe him.

A few years back, having a Facebook account is something uncommon. Only a few people used to prefer this social media site for interaction and enjoying games. But now Facebook is not only the favorite platform of individuals, but also of business entities.

You must be thinking what the business entities have to do with Facebook. You will be amazed to know Facebook offers countless features. A business entity cannot only promote the brand, but also make profit.

Isn’t it amazing that now you can use Facebook having millions of users to introduce and sell your brand? Indeed it is. The only thing is to bolster the techniques you prefer to achieve this goal.

Now the question is if Facebook is that popular and if everyone is using it, and how one can increase Facebook engagement for social media marketing purposes. There are many tips and tricks you can consider being a business professional to publish your posts in order to get best results. These handy tricks you must know are as follows.

Featured image by Alessio85 / Flickr (CC)

Trick # 1: Prefer Best Time for Facebook Posting

It is always suggested to select those hours for posting when the users can easily like or comment on it. These no-busy hours will be those times when the users are not at work.

It is observed that the best non-busy hours in which you can get 20 percent to 40 percent more user engagement is between 8 PM to 7 AM. Thus if you want to get maximum results, these times are best for posting on Facebook.

READ MORE: Best times to post on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest 

Trick # 2: Select Best Day for Facebook Postings

Here you need to understand that besides focusing on the right time, you must also focus on the right day for publishing your posts on Facebook.

Keep in mind that publishing posts throughout the week on Facebook will not serve the purpose.

Instead, you must prefer this exercise on Wednesdays and Sundays, as it has been analyzed the user engagement can increase 8 percent to 10 percent on these days compared to other days of the week.

Trick # 3: Publish Posts Sensibly

You must have noticed few business entities that prefer to publish many posts in a day. Are you also one of them? If yes, then it is the time to change.

Do not make your prospects feel you are desperate to make sales, instead, make them feel you are informing them about some amazing opportunity. Thus it is advisable to publish 1 to 2 posts per day.

You will be amazed to know what statistics show on this approach: the publisher gains 40 percent to 50 percent more user engagement.

However, in case, you want to engage more number of users than this, the recommended approach is to post 1 to 5 times a week only, as this approach promises 70 percent to 80 percent more user engagement.

Featured image by olga.palma / Flickr (CC)

Trick #4: Focus on the Length of Your Post

Keep in mind that the length of the post to publish is one of the major factors to determine user engagement.

You need to acknowledge that no one likes to read long posts. Thus focus on the length of your post before publishing it on wall. Make sure that neither it is too short or too long to get the desired results.

Now the question that may arise in your mind is what can be the best length to engage more users.

Are you concerned about the same query? If yes, you should know that for retail brands, it is preferable to post 80 to 100 characters long post, as it can increase user engagement by 60 percent to 70 percent.

Moreover, do not forget to add a relevant but attractive picture with your post to make readers compel to read what you have published.

Trick # 5: What and How to Post?

Last, but not the least, is what to publish and in what way to engage more users.

This all depends on the purpose for publishing the content on Facebook. For example, if it is for retail branding, the best approach is to publish posts with questions and more preferable with a fill in the blanks structure.

Keep in mind that here you may get less likes, but the reader engagement for posting comments will be 9 percent to 10 percent higher.

In nutshell, you can say that Facebook brand promotion is not the only requirement, but it is all about how you use the social media site.

Consider the aforementioned tips to engage with more Facebook users, increase your customer database, and eventually profits.

This guest post was written by Muhammad Azam, a professional technology blogger. Azam has written several high quality posts on different tech related topics. He also writes for Nextdayflyers.com, a professional online printing company. Visit them here.

5 Tricks to Engage More Readers on Facebook Posts Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media