There are three major Facebook EdgeRank ranking factors:
Brent Rangen’s article at SearchEngineWatch.com explains…

  • Affinity: This is directly related to likes, interactions, and your relationships. Those you interact with regularly receive a higher affinity score. If you were to like the SaucyHorse Social Media updates regularly, we would receive a higher affinity score from you. Affinity score is a one-way street. You can’t increase your own score by actively liking other user’s updates.
  • Weight: Think of actions that take more effort here. Clicking “Like” would be at one end of the spectrum, right at the other end is commenting on video or photos.
  • Relevancy or timeliness: This is the freshness factor. Recent content prompting immediate activity with deep interactions would be ideal.

What Does EdgeRank Mean for the Future? 
If you’re buying fans or dragging in fans who don’t really care about your brand, the numbers of fans with little interaction can actually hurt you. A page with many fans and little or no interactions would receive the lowest EdgeRank score and it would be difficult to get page status updates featured anywhere.
As with Google, Facebook wants to feature reputable sources in the Top News feed, so the goal is showing Facebook you possess that authority.
How to Get on the Top News Feed? 
What does it take to get featured on the feed regularly, and what you can you do to grow your authority and EdgeRank? Here are 10 ideas:

  • Use photos and videos often.
  • Encourage interaction without being pushy.
  • Ask questions your fans and friends can’t help but answer.
  • Create a poll.
  • Open Graph web site and widgets – after all, not all interactions happen on the Facebook domain.
  • Promote your Facebook offline. Promotions can drive interest, contests, and also resources.
  • View Facebook Insights and gauge your audience.
  • Post trivia, quizzes, and games (not requests!)
  • Keep dialogue alive – make sure you’re engaging and keep it going.
  • Include links and images within updates.

EdgeRank is Everywhere
Facebook’s EdgeRank isn’t something attached only to your status update. It’s also your page, your profile, and incorporated with everything you do at Facebook.
So, with that in mind, how can you improve your content so that it’s hitting the mark in all the ways suggested above?